As someone who owns a few drones, I'm quite afraid of them. The racing ones are much more dangerous, but the pilots also tend to be much more responsible. The rotors can definitely cut flesh, which is why everyone has the "disarm" switch (which completely kills rotor power instantly) in the most easily accessible place on their controller. These, I'm not worried about, because every person I've seen flying one has always done it far away from people, and very very carefully.

The automatic drones are the ones I'm afraid of most, due to the posts I've seen on groups I'm a member of. They take no skill to fly, so people fly them without understanding. I've seen people disable the sensors and flying them a few centimeters from people's faces, where a slight gust of wind will mean permanent disfigurement. I've seen people fly them close to trees, next to wires over people, and a thousand other dangerous situations.

Whenever I see that a law forbids me from flying and taking photos, I initially curse the lawmakers and then realize that the same law protects me from the thousands of irresponsible drone owners, and I feel a bit better.

On that note, I wonder how long it'll be before we have real-life Half-Life-2-style Manhacks?

A month lead time ready made-to-order.

https://www.bostondynamics.com/

Spinning rotors and likely vector for a bystander impact is from above (i.e. Head)

Outside of military aircraft drone related deaths are extremely rare. Skulls can survive fairly heavy impacts relative to most drones. Randomly falling drones are also unlikely to hit someone outside the most densely packed crowds.

So, while drunk droning may be a safety hazard, it’s vastly less risky than drunk driving.

>Randomly falling drones are also unlikely to hit someone outside the most densely packed crowds.

Like those found in many Japanese cities?

Japanese drones are already banned in areas with over 4,000 people per km^2.

And it’s already outlawed over cities in Japan.

I'd see them as a cause of traffic accidents/injuries by distraction.

Just as being drunk in public is already a finable offence I think, as is causing disagreements on the public space.

Yes, they're rare because you're not sampling over the set of people operating them while drunk.

That’s likely to underestimate risks as there does not seem to be any deaths related to drunk drone operators.

With how many drones have been sold worldwide, if drones where even vaguely as dangerous as cars per hour we could easily find hundreds of deaths. So, even hypothetically cars are at minimum hundreds of times more dangerous.

I know Japanese cars tend to be smaller than the monstrosities common in the US, but even a small car will weigh >1000lbs. That's enough kinetic energy that even someone in another car is at risk, whereas anyone in a car is nearly invulnerable to a consumer drone. I definitely don't want to be struck by a drone, but given the choice between a car accident and drone accident, I'll take the drone any day.

Wait are we comparing drone on car impacts now?

Quite a few drunk driving deaths are car-on-car, so it seemed a reasonable comparison to make. Although I would suspect the majority of drone accidents are drone-on-human, but even in that case car-on-pedestrian is far more lethal.

A collision between a drone and a windshield is plenty to cause a serious accident.

Same logic as riding a bicycle _under the influence of alcohol_ is against the law in Japan.

Edit: clarified

Same in Austria: bikes/ebikes/scooters and scateboards have a alcohol limit of 0.8 permille. Drone piloting I believe has 0.0.

In Germany you can even lose your driver's license when riding a bike drunk (but you have to be very drunk.. more than 1.6 per mille).

What if you do not have a drivers license? You just get a fine?

A repeat offender would eventually be barred from any participation in traffic other than walking. Basically a form of restraining order, with the same limited effectivity.

Fortunately the law is still acknowledging that drunk cycling is much less bad than drunk driving (and often the only practical alternative besides sobriety), so you'd have to go pretty wild to ever get more than maybe a fine. Unfortunately, this view is increasingly under pressure from the kind of "enemy of the good" perfectionists who always ignore the big picture.

Same in the US

Depends on the state. In Washington(state) riding a bike while drunk is legal. The police can stop you an offer you a ride to your destination. If the drunk cyclist declines the offer, they're free to go unless the officer believes they are a hazard to the public, in which case the bicycle can be impounded if necessary. But the cyclist won't get a DUI for it.

That seems quite reasonable.

Bicycles generally share footpaths with pedestrians, so drunk riding can be dangerous to other people. Bicycle laws are rarely enforced in any case

Never heard that one...

It's not,that all bikes are disallowed, it's that riding a bicycle while drunk is against the law. And they have pretty stiff fines, comparable to drunk driving tickets: https://jpninfo.com/76265

Mind giving a source? Me and thousands of other university students in here would like to disagree.

It's against the law in many places in the US as well, but I've never heard of it enforced. I'm sure most people would rather have drunks on bikes than cars.

I suspect the main reason is to ensure the driver of a car is not liable if they hit a drunk cyclist.

It’s illegal but rarely enforced. If you hit a person while biking drunk you will likely be in a world of shit.

Unlikely unless you accidently kill /injure some one and then only if the family has a lot of $ for a private prosecution.

The original post stated cycling was illegal in japan.

Most people that think about the effects of drink-n-driving tend to link it to deaths. In reality, a majority of the cost is tied to public/private property damage. In that case, it is valid to argue that a drunk drone pilot can incur serious damage to electrical grids, increased odds of moving the drone to heights associated with airplanes/helicopters among many other issues.

Drunk drivers don't close down airports.

They could if they ran a car onto the runway.

You're right, they just kill people.

I think you'd be surprised, as I was, if you looked at the statistics on how dangerous driving under the influence is.

At 0.10% the accident rate is approximately 5x baseline.