You don't want regulations on RC aircraft, you want to ban them. But you know nothing about them. I have a small RC helicopter, I could run it into a baby's face at full power and it'd barely tickle.
You've gotten your ideas from media sensationalism of extreme incidents. I could just as easily use your arguments to say "ban bicycles" because someone fell off one and died, or ran into a little old lady and killed her. That's actually far more common than anyone being injured by RC aircraft.
You're not quantifying correctly. Car accidents and bicycle accidents are currently more common than RC aircraft accidents partly because RC use is so uncommon. If you throw in a denominator of operator-hours, the picture likely changes. You should also account for the foresight and preventability afforded to potential victims. From the perspective of a pedestrian or property owner on the ground, it is a lot easier to anticipate and avoid an accident with something moving horizontally than something falling out of the sky. I can avoid stepping into a crosswalk if I anticipate a taxi will run the red light. I can't anticipate something falling on my head.
There are many reasons you might want to ban RC in an urban area besides safety. There's reasonable expectations of privacy for example; I don't think residents of apartment buildings would be amused by drones with cameras tapping on their windows. There's noise considerations. If there are drones flying unexpectedly between buildings and down streets, it's unsightly and distracting. Let's keep them in the suburbs or rural areas where less people will be affected by these externalities.
Not really. Unlike a water treatment plant, tunnel, power station, etc. that provides benefit to many residents, flying RC aircraft only provides benefits to the users and come with a host of externalities for everybody else. You might as well say "nimby" about guns or drugs.
One benefit you may not have considered is that there is one group for whom flying model aircraft is very common and that is those people who design planes. You may find it an annoying hobby, but it is also much of the childhood inspiration for the next generation of aeronautical engineers.
Most externalities of drug use are a consequence of prohibition.
Meanwhile, blanket gun bans in the US are clearly invalid per two recent Supreme Court decisions. Gun laws in New York City specifically are currently under challenge in federal court, a challenge likely to be somewhat successful.
Few things that don't involve direct and specific harm to another person are subject to blanket prohibition. Rather, we use varying levels of regulation to avoid or minimize harm. Crying for a ban whenever you see a potential harm in an activity is a gross overreaction, and will merely cause people like me to consider you a NIMBY quack.
If this thread had opened with "we need clear rules about operating RC aircraft in heavily populated areas, let's talk about what would be reasonable", the thread would never have existed in its current state.
But that's not what happened. Instead, there was a knee-jerk cry for banning entirely. The irony is that it is your reaction that is emotional -- specifically, the emotion of fear. You cower in the face of things unfamiliar, while accusing those without fear of being emotional. Projection.
How do you anticipate a bicycle hitting you from behind?
> There's reasonable expectations of privacy for example
There is nothing reasonable about an expectation of privacy when your curtains are open.
> There's noise considerations.
More ignorance, more overreaction. Many RC aircraft are nearly silent, and we have noise ordinances for the rest. But I promise, you won't hear most RC aircraft over the din in Manhattan anyway.
> unsightly
According to whom?
> distracting
Oh look, an actual problem to be addressed. Why not talk about that? Oh, right, because it's just a post-hoc rationalization for an initial knee-jerk reaction.
> Let's keep them in the suburbs or rural areas where less people will be affected by these externalities.
You mean where the majority of people, especially children, will have no opportunity to play, experiment, and learn.
We already have laws to control the externalities. The NYPD is investigating this guy for reckless endangerment. That should be more than enough.
Your emotions are coloring your ability to seriously consider how the 99% of urban dwellers who couldn't care less about being able to fly RC aircraft would feel about them being ubiquitous. I don't need to anticipate a bike hitting me from behind on the sidewalk because they are illegal there, and in the street, I look around (horizontally!) like every other pedestrian. I think that you also fail to understand how things like space, privacy, quietness, accountability, and yes, aesthetics are shared resources in a city that have to be carefully balanced among ALL people, not just an emotional or sarcastic 1%. To manage those concerns take resources, like police, city council members, and licensing.
Perhaps you would volunteer to test and license every operator and RC aircraft in the NYC for noise, safety, and flight-worthiness? And to respond to all of the reckless endangerment complaints that will happen anyway? No? Then I guess it will eventually cost me money. And no, I don't think every future reckless operator of an RC aircraft will be dumb enough to record his face on takeoff. It would seem that being able to control them from thousands of feet away, operator unseen, makes it a little harder to police than, say, a hit and run motorist, and the police already have plenty of problems catching them. But perhaps you are ready to volunteer your time and money to solve that problem as well.
Many people choose to live in the suburbs and rural areas (many more than in places with the density of Manhattan, for sure). There are already many different opportunities for kids there that don't exist in the city (why, my kid would like to ride his pony and his ATV on the streets, and go skeet shooting! why can't he?) I shed no tears for the sad future children of Manhattan who will be utterly deprived of the opportunity to fly their RC drones down avenues with hundreds of pedestrians. There are literally millions of square miles in the rest of this country where you can do that at a fraction of the risk. And if their parent really cares, they can drive ten miles into Jersey or upstate and do it in a large open park, the way any responsible person already does today.
Your comment is full of factual errors, erroneous assumptions, and evidence of living in a privileged bubble.
Bicycles are not universally illegal on the sidewalk -- in fact, they're specifically legal on the sidewalk where I live, and yes it's in the US. Not that illegality stops people anywhere.
If you want permits, those are generally funded by fees. Talk about that, rather than a knee-jerk ban. As you've already indicated: Enforcement can be difficult. So how are you going to enforce a complete ban, anyway?
A lot of my money goes to things I don't like. For example, your protection by police, fire, military, and the courts. I'd very much like a refund on that. Just for the portion that covers you, you understand. I'm fine with it going to everyone else. Since you're just one person, that's well below your apparent threshold of 1% for number of people that actually matter, so it shouldn't be a problem, right?
Horses can be lawfully ridden on many if not most city streets, including New York City.
It is probable there is some motorized vehicle your son would be permitted to operate in Manhattan. Electric-assist bicycles are often legal on city streets. Not being able to ride an ATV is a consequence of regulation of vehicular traffic, rather than a blanket ban on wheeled transport, as you wish for RC aircraft. And certainly when your son reaches the appropriate age, he will be able to obtain a license to operate a wide variety of motorized vehicles in New York City and across the country. Again, regulation, not prohibition.
80% of the US population is urbanized. Suburbs are largely for a privileged class, and the extreme rural poor would generally be better served if they could live in a city.
Getting out of an urban environment requires the parent to be privileged enough to have the time to do it, and the money to afford the car and gas. You may think this is no problem for most of the people who can afford to live in Manhattan, but Manhattan is not the only urban area in the US. Banning RC aircraft from urban areas covers many high-population areas that I don't believe you have visited or understand in the least.
Try spending some time outside wealthy uptown areas for a while. There's a country full of urban areas you have obviously not seen or experienced. People living lives vastly different from your own. People you want to rip privileges away from because you think Manhattan is America.
You don't want regulations on RC aircraft, you want to ban them. But you know nothing about them. I have a small RC helicopter, I could run it into a baby's face at full power and it'd barely tickle.
You've gotten your ideas from media sensationalism of extreme incidents. I could just as easily use your arguments to say "ban bicycles" because someone fell off one and died, or ran into a little old lady and killed her. That's actually far more common than anyone being injured by RC aircraft.