“Keep Calm and Carry on Reasonable Drone Rules” That’s the advice of one of America’s leading policy think tanks when it comes to UAV regulation.
In a recently published column for the Brookings Institute, David Swindell, Kevin C. Desouza and Sabrina P.K. Glimcher call for common sense rules that recognize the reality that drone technology is here to stay. Citing recent cases in Iowa City, Iowa and Charlottesville, Virginia, where drones were banned outright, lead author Desouza points out overzealous regulators could legislate away the many benefits UAVs afford.
“As is commonly the case with new technology, governments typically engaged with a heavy hand that sometimes misses the opportunities afforded by the new technologies to improve city services and quality of life,” Desouza writes.
The report notes that while high-profile drone misuse makes for exciting television (specifically the recent California wildfire drone debacle), governments need to avoid “regulation by default,” Brookings advises lawmakers to focus on sound policy rather than alarmist reactions to drones themselves.
“State and local governments need to engage on this policy issue more proactively. To do so, however, requires a delicate balancing act of the multiple competing interests of legitimate commercial uses, policing, public safety, privacy, and private property concerns,” Desouza said, adding that such a debate is made more difficult in an arena where “federal law remains unsettled.”
In fact, in a more in-depth report on drones and other emerging tech, Brookings notes that the FAA is trying to “keep up with its regulatory responsibilities but is operating in an institutional setting that operates at a fundamentally different speed than the speed with which this new technology is emerging and spreading in the realm of non-military applications.”
Calling for “reasoned regulation of domestic drones, Desouza and his colleagues recommend that regulators “recognize that technology is not the problem, but how it is used can be a potential problem.”
“The challenge this rapidly developing technology is creating is well ahead of local government efforts to rein in excessive activities,” the report concludes.
Jason is a longstanding contributor to DroneLife with an avid interest in all things tech. He focuses on anti-drone technologies and the public safety sector; police, fire, and search and rescue.
Beginning his career as a journalist in 1996, Jason has since written and edited thousands of engaging news articles, blog posts, press releases and online content.
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