
Pilot of drone that struck woman at Pride Parade gets 30 days in jail - altstar
http://www.seattletimes.com/seattle-news/crime/pilot-of-drone-that-struck-woman-at-pride-parade-sentenced-to-30-days-in-jail/
======
foxhop
I feel the same about cars as I do about drones in that they are very
dangerous.

The car industry had a history of blaming the victim as a "jay-walker" and
even lobbying for laws against them.

In another universe we have a name for somebody that gets in the way of a
drone, and the victim is punished for not wearing a helmet.

~~~
closeparen
Yeah, we took some minor capabilities away from pedestrians:

1) Ability to enter the roadway at any time, rather than after checking that
it's clear.

2) Ability to walk down the middle of the roadway instead of the sidewalk.

And in exchange, we vastly expanded the amount of commutable land per travel
minute, resulting in more space for most people. Also affordable inter-city
travel and the National Parks. I'd do it again.

Just as suburbia is seen by some contemporary progressives as a great social
evil, the crowded conditions of urban tenements were the great problem of our
time to progressive visionaries back then [0]. Walking as a primary form of
transportation, and the extreme density it required of the working class, was
not a scalable, long-term, or humane solution. We should have leaned into
streetcars instead of personal cars in order to spread out, sure, but then
it'd just be some other kind of vehicle making the streets dangerous for
pedestrians.

No great social problem is solved by drones being welcome at low altitude over
crowds. News and public safety organizations already knows how to use real
helicopters in that context. There isn't some latent use case for aerial
photography that we're all suffering without, it's a nice-to-have, and the
decision that it isn't worth the tradeoffs is much more clear-cut.

[0]
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/New_York_State_Tenement_House_...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/New_York_State_Tenement_House_Act)

~~~
erikpukinskis
> Walking as a primary form of transportation, and the extreme density it
> required of the working class, was not a scalable, long-term, or humane
> solution.

What are you talking about? Walking is awesome, it's incredibly healthy and in
the long term, as our cities reorganize around us better, walking will be the
default. As a human being, you need to walk to be healthy anyway, so why not
kill two birds with one stone? We'll use cars only for long distance travel,
but food, work, and other basic daily necessities will all be within easy
walking distance of your house. Surburbia is a horrible system because it
guarantees density is so low that walking by default is impossible.

I would describe any system where it's difficult to choose walking
alternatives for your various errands as a form of slow torture which turns
peoples bodies into useless sacks.

~~~
closeparen
>as our cities reorganize around us better

The average human walks about 3mph. Let's say you should be able to cross the
city in an hour, so we want a radius of 1.5mi, which yields an area of 7.1
square miles.

Manhattan's daytime population is 3.9 million. Let's put them all in those 7.1
square miles: 549,000 people per square mile [0].

The densest city in the world is Manilla, at 107,562 per square mile [1].
You're asking for more than 5x the highest density level we've ever attempted.

Walking doesn't scale. To congregate in large population centers effectively,
we need fast(er) transportation methods. Granted, personal cars don't scale
too well either, which is why the correct solution probably involves trains,
buses, two-wheeled vehicles with varying degrees of power (bicycles, e-bikes,
electric scooters, etc), and traditional cars/trucks which are too expensive
for mainstream daily use but still available when needed. All dangerous for
pedestrians.

[0]
[http://www.wolframalpha.com/input/?i=3.9+million+people+%2F+...](http://www.wolframalpha.com/input/?i=3.9+million+people+%2F+7.1mi%5E2)

[1]
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_cities_by_population_d...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_cities_by_population_density)

~~~
erikpukinskis
Why do you think high speed trains and designing our neighborhoods to provide
walkable basics are incompatible ideas?

Yes, we need better public transit. But the cheapest, most ecological transit
is the distance you just don't travel.

There is no reason, even at Manila densities, you can't have a green grocer
within a few blocks of every city resident.

~~~
closeparen
Trains are extremely dangerous for pedestrians, and they create spaces (train
tracks) cutting up the city where pedestrians are unwelcome. We regularly and
unabashedly victim-blame pedestrians who die after getting in the way of
trains. We even do it in TV commercials set to catchy music. [0].

I agree that trains are a better idea than personal cars in general, and that
cities should be designed for as much walkability as possible.

But walking _alone_ doesn't cut it, and once you introduce trains, you have
the same problem foxop pointed out: spaces that vehicles own and pedestrians
must tread carefully in, where pedestrians will be blamed for their own deaths
when killed by those vehicles. They are unavoidable. We just get to choose
which kind of vehicle goes in them.

[0] [http://www.dumbwaystodie.com/](http://www.dumbwaystodie.com/)

------
robmate
"A man who was found guilty of reckless endangerment after his drone injured
two people during Seattle’s 2015 Pride Parade, including a woman knocked
unconscious, was sentenced Friday to 30 days in jail."

He knocked a woman unconscious!! 30 days in jail seems a little bit off to me
but he could've injured someone badly...

~~~
melling
Someone still has to die before some people realize how dangerous drones can
be?

[https://h4labs.wordpress.com/2015/07/19/dangerous-drones-
dai...](https://h4labs.wordpress.com/2015/07/19/dangerous-drones-daily/)

~~~
levelist_com
Anything can be dangerous in the hands of an imbecile.

~~~
melling
What do you think you're adding to the conversation by saying "Anything can be
dangerous in the hands of an imbecile?"

40,000 people died in automobile accidents last year. We had several million
other accidents with cars. You don't need to be an imbecile to have an
accident. Objects controlled by humans moving at a high rate of speed turn out
to be dangerous, and great care is required.

How much karma do I have to waste explaining such a simple idea to people? I'm
done.

~~~
levelist_com
What am I adding to the conversation? I thought your question was fucking
stupid and typical of people that want to put safety rails on everything,
child proof everything, and legislate everything to the point you cant do
anything fun. Im not saying you're that person, but I am saying that your
question sure makes it sound like you are. I felt my response was a common
sense response to your silly, perhaps hyperbolic, question and needed to be
said. What exactly did your question add to the conversation? Nothing.

[Edit]

Also, in response to your car analogy, how many of those accidents were caused
by people operating a motor vehicle while on a phone, texting, being
intoxicated, being on drugs prescribed or illegal, being too exhausted to
drive, driving too fast in hazardous conditions such as rain, snow, and ice,
driving recklessly or at a high rate of speed through construction zones,
etc.? Are you telling me these people were able to get a license without being
aware of the dangers? Hell, there are even laws to prevent most of the stuff I
listed yet people do them anyhow. People are reckless, only are concerned with
themselves, and many can't seem make the connection that actions have
consequences, or they just don't care. That makes them what? Say it with me...
Imbeciles!

[Edit 2]

> How much karma do I have to waste explaining such a simple idea to people?
> I'm done.

I especially enjoyed your last line. Thank you for that :-)

------
zach417
I assume it's easier to think this kind of sentence is okay when you don't own
a drone nor want to own one; it's why taxing cigarettes is the go-to funding
tool for increases in education spending. I don't smoke, so who cares? So, I'm
assuming this is why the judge and attorney were so aggressive with the
sentencing, but 30 days in jail is beyond the realm of reasonableness. I'm all
for having the defendant pay restitution, but jail does no one any amount of
good.

~~~
rlpb
I can't speak for the US, but in the UK it is illegal for a pilot of a manned
aircraft to overfly a crowd below the height above which gliding clear is
possible after an engine failure. In any case, the pilot needs a license to
fly the aircraft at all, and getting one needs extensive training and
demonstration of competence. Helicopters are "aircraft". Exceptions exist for
medevac and police.

This rule comes from a consideration of crowd safety.

I'm not suggesting that exactly the same rigor must be applied so drones.
After all they're smaller and likely to kill far fewer people after an
accident involving a crowd. However, I think 30 days is entirely appropriate
for someone who was reckless with people's lives under the circumstances. This
assumes he was reckless; the article doesn't say if the court decided that.

~~~
pc86
Flight student here - the US is 500' above "non-congested areas" and 1000'
above "congested areas," however neither are strictly defined. As my
instructor put it, "if you could land on someone's head, consider it
congested."

The except is air shows, where there is no minimum, and some special use areas
such as Military Operations Areas.

If you're operating a drone for commercial purposes you need a Private Pilot's
License and UAS (Unmanned Aircraft Systems) certificate. This guy owns an
aerial photography company but it's not clear if the drone use was hobbyist in
nature or if he was getting footage of the event for commercial purposes.
Regardless, if he's found criminally liable due to how he operated the drone,
it's almost a certainty that the FAA will be coming after every license he
has.

------
twiss
This case seems similar to me to, for example, a flower pot falling off a
balcony [1]. Does anyone know what the sentence would be for something like
that?

[1]: [http://www.standard.co.uk/news/woman-fights-for-life-
after-p...](http://www.standard.co.uk/news/woman-fights-for-life-after-
paddington-pub-flower-pot-falls-on-her-head-6525094.html)

~~~
pc86
Except you don't intentionally fly a flower pot above peoples' heads, then hit
a building and disable it because you have no idea what you're doing.

Had the woman's boyfriend not caught her she could have been hurt much worse
or even killed depending on how she landed. I'm not sure how I feel about the
jail sentence, but the $500 fine and 100% restitution for medical bills
(percentage hasn't been determined yet) seems on the lower end of appropriate.

~~~
choward
> Except you don't intentionally fly a flower pot above peoples' heads, then
> hit a building and disable it because you have no idea what you're doing.

They did intentionally place a planter in a dangerous spot. They obviously
made a mistake so it fell. Or you could say "they had no idea what they were
doing" so it fell. The drone pilot made a mistake and hit a building and made
his drone fall. How is this any different?

------
yabatopia
Why is it relevant that it happened on a Pride Parade, as the headline
suggest? "Pilot of drone that struck woman at parade gets 30 days in jail" is
perfectly fine.

Now the current headline suggests it could have been a hate crime (it's not),
or that a pride parade is something particular (it's not).

It's like "Black man robs woman" instead of "Man robs woman": a little bit too
specific and suggestive.

~~~
dragonwriter
> Why is it relevant that it happened on a Pride Parade, as the headline
> suggest?

Because people familiar with the initial incident will more readily connect
this story of the legal outcome with the incident with that context. The story
isn't just a standalone item, it's part of a series of articles stretching
back to the initial incident. [0]

[0] You can follow the whole thing back with hyperlinks from the latest
article to each previous story, back to: [http://www.seattletimes.com/seattle-
news/crime/woman-knocked...](http://www.seattletimes.com/seattle-
news/crime/woman-knocked-unconscious-by-falling-drone-during-seattles-pride-
parade/)

