Slashdot Mirror
Severn Bridge, a Main Route Between England and Wales, Shuts as Drone Flown From Tower (bbc.com)
A main route between England and Wales was closed after a man climbed a bridge and flew a drone from the top. An anonymous reader shares a report: Traffic was stopped on the M48 -- the older of two Severn crossings -- because of "concern for welfare," police said. The man, in his 20s, came down voluntarily from the 47m (154ft) bridge tower and was arrested on suspicion of causing a public nuisance. Highways England said it was deeply concerned and that "a person has put their life at serious risk". "The incident was quickly spotted on our security cameras and reported to police and thankfully there was no injury or worse on this occasion," it said. "Appropriate security is in place on the bridge, we are liaising with Avon and Somerset Police and will be undertaking investigations to determine if any damage was caused during the incident." Police said: "Officers attended the M48 Severn Bridge at 08:10 this morning after concerns were raised for a man who appeared to have climbed one of the towers and was flying a drone off it."
Fucking up traffic for hundreds of people isn't hacking and it isn't a prank. It's just being a dick and causing problems because you can.
Traffic was only fucked up because the cops chose to stop it -- if he was ignored and allowed to do his thing, traffic wouldn't have been affected much.
I know it's the hot thing to bring up drone related closings - but in this case, wasn't the road closed because there was some guy far above it that might have fallen or dropped things on the road from above, rather than the drone being a factor?
The drone doesn't seem to be a reason for the closure, at all.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
Philosophically I support that ethos.
But only to a point. Nice to meet you, idealism. I'd like to introduce you to my friend, reality.
Huge numbers of people rely on public infrastructure. There are rules that govern how people behave in public spaces, since the actions of one person can have a bad effect on large numbers of others. An irresponsible drone operator on a bridge could easily crash a quadcopter into a car, leading to a chain of accidents that could result in death. This guy clearly needed to be arrested and slapped with a fine large enough to deter him from doing it again.
Make public rules too loose, and the result is chaos that renders expensive infrastructure useless. Make public rules too tight, and you restrict personal freedoms of movement and expression. Yes, there is a sweet spot in the middle. No, we haven't quite found it yet for drone operation. Using a public bridge like a personal jungle gym, however, is firmly in "idiot" territory.
But with the increasing body count from the followers of a certain religion you can't be that way any more.
When it comes to terrorism, backpacks are a far bigger risk than drones.
They police where not acting on the drone, they where acting on the fool flying the drone.
Crime rates have declined dramatically since the 1990s, for reasons that have nothing to do with "policing", yet today we have more police than ever. So they have to fabricate and exaggerate "crimes" to justify the inflated cost of over-policing.
Come election day, when you receive a mailer that says a candidate is endorsed by the police chief, you should vote for the other guy.
If the guy climbed it with a rifle strapped to his back then, sure, take some precautionary steps.
Shutting down traffic because someone is flying an RC aircraft from the top of a bridge ?
Really ?
That stupid decision caused far more problems than it solved.
If the drivers there are anything like the ones in the States, they would not have noticed it in the first place because they are usually staring at their phones.
I swear half the planet is terrified of their own shadow these days.
Yes, but they're not shooting their dicks off in the meat section of an Arizona Wal-Mart.
You are welcome on my lawn.
I'm gonna be bit harsh in my response - This is a standard logic fail and people on this site should know better by now.
When the cops chase a speeder and cause an accidental death, people decide that cop chases are the root of all traffic accidents. This only makes sense if you ignore the fact that speeders cause tons of death themselves.
When an ultra-rare adverse immunization event causes a death, people conclude immunizations are evil. Forget the fact that immunization has been absolutely proven to save more lives than..... well, pretty much anything else, with the exception of perhaps antibiotics.
Seat belts occasionally decapitate someone, so some idiots conclude that seat belts are fascism. Seat belts actually save tons of lives? Irrelevant! One guy died from them and that makes people mad.
Some teenage monkey with social media on the brain and wwwwwaaayyyy too much testosterone in his veins climbs a public bridge and launches a drone. The cops close the bridge in order to deal with it safely. Your conclusion - cops are bad! Possibility he might fall? Drop something onto a car below? Gawkers create a multicar pile-up in the middle of the bridge? Cops or safety workers might get hit by a car while dealing with the situation? Nah, all irrelevant. Most people don't like being told what to do and everyone has seen a Youtube video of some guy being abused by a cop! Screw The Man!
We're not islands. We live in large social groups. We're governed by a complex, evolving, imperfect set of rules that allow *most* of us to get along *most* of the time. Occasionally the rules are arbitrary or just plain wrong and lead to stupidity. When that happens, people need to call out the flaws in the rules so they can be modified. Cops aren't perfect, and authorities sometimes make bad calls. The cops probably called this one right. Hard truth: occasionally your freedom to do whatever the hell you want, whenever the hell you want, gets curtailed in order to keep you from putting 150 people around you in danger. That's what happened here. Boo hoo.