Topic: Gatwick Chaos due to Drones

[Nobby Reserve]

I’m assuming all drones purchased from now on will require registering at point of purchase (so ID provided, etc) - so should hopefully make it somewhat harder to use them to cause trouble / disruption.

Someone planning to use drones to cause disruption would hardly be likely to wander into a high street retailer and use their debit card to buy their drones.

Apart from eBay, Amazon and other online sources where I really doubt there'd be checks and registration requirements, someone with a reasonable engineering knowledge could build one from parts easily obtainable.

[CraigDS]

Someone planning to use drones to cause disruption would hardly be likely to wander into a high street retailer and use their debit card to buy their drones.

Apart from eBay, Amazon and other online sources where I really doubt there'd be checks and registration requirements, someone with a reasonable engineering knowledge could build one from parts easily obtainable.

I’d imagine all retailers will be required to take details at point of sale. Pretty simple system but obviously not impossible to bypass (no system would be). Retailers found not doing so would be fined.

Like you say though, if it then comes down to building one yourself then it’s going to stop some of the people using them for knob head purposes.

[classycarra]

It’s a mandatory requirement with a fine if you do not do so and are caught.

Not sure how else you’d compel unknown owners to register them other than that.

Of course all options are imperfect, but that doesn't mean you can't improve on this lazy level of imperfection. Obviously police are going to dedicate no resources to it either, unless called out to an emergency in a no fly zone.

Just a few ideas (not all entirely serious) for better ways to get people registered a) in the intitial window and b) gradually, over time

• Offer an amnesty on first year annual fee
• Offer a subsidy to hand over old heavy duties to be registered while replaced/repaired
• Work with suppliers to contact all contactable customers
• Make the disincentive fine a lot higher £1,000 is a not at all prohibitive risk many rich people would be willing to take. Anyone with malicious intent even more so.
• You could means test the fines. The more expensive the market value of the drone, the higher the fine.
• Link the fines to local authority budgets, to boost their budgets during austerity. Similar to speeding tickets. although less regressive a fine - also incentivises local authority employees to find unregistered users, which clearly and rightly isn't going to be a police priority.

Someone planning to use drones to cause disruption would hardly be likely to wander into a high street retailer and use their debit card to buy their drones.

Apart from eBay, Amazon and other online sources where I really doubt there'd be checks and registration requirements, someone with a reasonable engineering knowledge could build one from parts easily obtainable.

That's exactly why it's  important more is done to prevent the 130,000 people's drones from becoming potentially valuable for being 'off the grid'

[CraigDS]

Of course all options are imperfect, but that doesn't mean you can't improve on this lazy level of imperfection. Obviously police are going to dedicate no resources to it either, unless called out to an emergency in a no fly zone.

Just a few ideas (not all entirely serious) for better ways to get people registered a) in the intitial window and b) gradually, over time

• Offer an amnesty on first year annual fee
• Offer a subsidy to hand over old heavy duties to be registered while replaced/repaired
• Work with suppliers to contact all contactable customers
• Make the disincentive fine a lot higher £1,000 is a not at all prohibitive risk many rich people would be willing to take. Anyone with malicious intent even more so.
• You could means test the fines. The more expensive the market value of the drone, the higher the fine.
• Link the fines to local authority budgets, to boost their budgets during austerity. Similar to speeding tickets. although less regressive a fine - also incentivises local authority employees to find unregistered users, which clearly and rightly isn't going to be a police priority.

None of them really compel anyone to register though, which is what you said originally.

The free first year may certainly encourage more to register, but the fee is relatively low as it is and probably not that much of a disincentive to people who have enough disposable income to afford a £2, 3, 400+ drone in the first place.

I’m not sure that many ‘rich’ people, who have no malicious intent, would see £1000 as a low amount they’d be happy to pay out for simply flying their drone around their house or wherever when they could pay £9 to register.

The aim here is obviously to encourage the current owners to use their drones legally and responsibly, whilst making it harder for those with malicious intent to purchase them off the shelf in the first place. 

Not sure on the legalities of the council being able to take someone’s property & their details and check for registration though. Maybe in the future when all drones can be checked remotely that becomes more possible, but I think the vast majority of current drones out there can’t be done in that way.

[classycarra]

None of them really compel anyone to register though, which is what you said originally.

My point was that it was an unimaginative piece of regulation, with little to no understanding that it won't achieve much - a theme for these recent Tory governments who have put some terribly written legislation through. Maybe I should have put "better compel" for the sake of semantics.

The free first year may certainly encourage more to register, but the fee is relatively low as it is and probably not that much of a disincentive to people who have enough disposable income to afford a £2, 3, 400+ drone in the first place.

I’m not sure that many ‘rich’ people, who have no malicious intent, would see £1000 as a low amount they’d be happy to pay out for simply flying their drone around their house or wherever when they could pay £9 to register.

The aim here is obviously to encourage the current owners to use their drones legally and responsibly, whilst making it harder for those with malicious intent to purchase them off the shelf in the first place. 

Not sure on the legalities of the council being able to take someone’s property & their details and check for registration though. Maybe in the future when all drones can be checked remotely that becomes more possible, but I think the vast majority of current drones out there can’t be done in that way.

On the rich people thing - I think you're overestimating the concern anyone would have that they're going to be caught with an unregistered drone. It's not that they have £1000 to spare. It's that they know outside of being near airfields noone is going to give a shit. If they stood to lose a little more, combined with an actual plan to monitor this regulation, they might think twice

[Alan_X]

I'll add that if the aim is to eradicate the possibility of people using them to cause trouble or disruption, then it simply won't work. Those intent on using them maliciously simply won't register.

You could argue the same for any registration scheme. It does two things though. It reduces the set of unregistered drones from all of them to just those deliberately unregistered. And as a consequence, it allows unregistered drones to be impounded.