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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.
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 buying a computer and posting on forums isn't?
My Other Computer Is A Data General Nova III.
A few years ago this wouldn't have been a problem. Police would have just waited him out and arrested him for being stupid. But with the increasing body count from the followers of a certain religion you can't be that way any more. They police where not acting on the drone, they where acting on the fool flying the drone.
I read at +2. If your post doesn't reach that level I will not see or respond to it.
Quite the opposite - deaths due to terrorism by christians has gone down significantly over the last few decades. As have killed the greatest numbers by an order of magnitude or two in the UK, I'll presume that's the certain religion you're talking about.
https://researchbriefings.parl...
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.
Damn helpful cops and safety laws to protect stupid people.
They're the reason we don't have nearly enough Darwin Prizes.
#DeleteFacebook
So creates all these false flags to whip up fear so the public won't object too hard. H.L. Mencken said:
Civilization, in fact, grows more and more maudlin and hysterical; especially under democracy it tends to degenerate into a mere combat of crazes; the whole aim of practical politics is to keep the populace alarmed (and hence clamorous to be led to safety) by menacing it with an endless series of hobgoblins, most of them imaginary.
Looking more and more prophetic and correct by the day.
Why guess when you can know? Measure!
Yes, but they're not shooting their dicks off in the meat section of an Arizona Wal-Mart.
You are welcome on my lawn.
The article doesn't say how the person was flying the drone but it is possible to fly it so that it pops in front of someone's windshield causing them to make an unexpected motion such as slamming on the brakes or swerving into another lane. Just think of how people behave when a bird flies too close to the car.
The article doesn't say what type of drone was being used so we don't know if it was a small one under 250 grams like you assume. It could have been a larger one with a camera attached. Maybe he wanted to video/photograph the bridge to build a model replica and did it in the dumbest way possible.
Or maybe he was trying to have "fun" like the idiots who stand on a highway overpass and throw rocks at the cars below. The article just doesn't give us enough details to make any judgements. But there are idiots out there that don't think when using drones.
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.
I was stuck for 2 hours on the freeway because someone climbed over the side wall of an overpass. Police were afraid he was going to suicide by jumping into freeway traffic below, so shut down traffic to protect the lives of people driving underneath.
When it comes to terrorism, backpacks are a far bigger risk than drones
What was he using the drone for? What if he was using the drone to scout out soft targets to shoot at? Granted, he probably wasn't but you can't be sure. Again, this isn't about the drone. It's about the idiot flying the drone. The drone just just small part of a bigger issue.
I read at +2. If your post doesn't reach that level I will not see or respond to it.
Actually, traffic was fucked up because this guy was a pedestrian on a vehicle-only road - a "motorway" in EN_GB. It is an offence to be a pedestrian on these roads without authorisation (road workers) or good cause (your vehicle has broken down and you are walking from the breakdown to the nearest emergency phone). (Bicyclists and horse riders / horse-drawn vehicles are also banned.) So the police were doing an operation to detain a criminal and shut down the road for their (perceived) convenience or safety. I believe American police have comparable powers. You'll notice that I haven't mentioned the drone. I've given it all the importance it warrants.
Birds are not dinosaur descendants;birds are dinosaurs, for all useful meanings of "birds", "are" and "dinosaurs"
It is a shame that people are not able to fundamentally grasp that the government is in the wrong here.
They would be if it were true. But the reality is that a person had climbed a structure not meant to be climbed and posed a danger to himself and the people underneath it. In what world does closing the bridge until that person is off the structure not seem like the normal response?
There's nothing wrong with protecting the life of stupid people as well as those they may impact (if he fell). The fact that a drone was involved is clickbait and irrelevant.
Too many times police will unnecessarily escalate situations complicating matters in ways that just are not necessary to resolve the problem.
They reduced risk at the cost of a bit of traffic. A textbook case of deescalating an unknown and risky situation. Boo fucking hoo.
Would be much cheaper if government just ignored this slob or waited for him to come down an arrest him without all of this "over reactive BS".
Would it be cheaper if he fell? Hit a car causing a chain of accidents that took hours to clear and closed the bridge for a significantly longer time?
Check yourself before you wreak yourself man. That anti-government anger vein on your forehead looks like it's about to burst.