New Jersey to Outlaw Drone Photography?

[CLamb]

There is a bill in the New Jersey Senate, S3183 http://www.njleg.state.nj.us/2014/Bills ... 183_I1.HTM which would make it a felony to use a drone to photograph "Critical Infrastructure". "Critical Infrastructure" being just about everything according to the bill--including transportation.

[kilroy]

How can you make something illegal using a drone that is legal to do otherwise? I don't see how the State can get this through in current form.

They can regulate it perhaps but not ban it.

[RussNelson]

I don't understand where all these cowards came from.

[Ken W2KB]

How can you make something illegal using a drone that is legal to do otherwise? I don't see how the State can get this through in current form.

They can regulate it perhaps but not ban it.

.

The ability to regulate is questionable also. Drones are aircraft under FAA safety and operating rules jurisdiction. As such state regulation is likely preempted by federal jurisdiction as with manned aircraft. This is similar to railroad safety and operating regulation which is exclusively under FRA jurisdiction.

[carajul]

Taking photos from public property is 1st Amend protected. This bill is going to open a can of worms. What if the operator is on public property and the drone is over private property. Who determines what "critical infrastructure" is. Too many lose ends. Obviously you don't want to be flying a drone over a Dept of D building or NSA building lol.

[CNJ Fan 4evr]

Call me old-fashion but I find these stupid things annoying. You want to take an aerial shot..... fly in a plane. This is just another piece of modern technology that is just going to cause trouble. Look how idiots are flying them too close to aircraft already. Wait until some bozo loses control of one of these and it bounces off the windshield of a locomotive going 50 or 60 mph. Could happen.

[carajul]

Look how many idiots drive cars.

[ebtmikado]

Call me old-fashion but I find these stupid things annoying. You want to take an aerial shot..... fly in a plane. This is just another piece of modern technology that is just going to cause trouble. Look how idiots are flying them too close to aircraft already. Wait until some bozo loses control of one of these and it bounces off the windshield of a locomotive going 50 or 60 mph. Could happen.

Call me old fashioned, but I find aeroplanes to be the devil's work. If the Good Lord wanted us to fly, we would have wings.
If He wanted us to take pictures, He would have given us memory cards in our head.

Lee

[kilroy]

God did give us memory cards in our heads, they're called brains. But just like any piece of hardware, they are subject to failure (some of us more than others, especially as we get older).

That and it's really hard to share those images with someone else so we need cameras.

[NYS&W142Fan]

Sadly there are far too many people out there that make it bad for others. Take the case where they were flying a drone over a guy's fenced in back yard photographing his sunbathing daughter. That is a invasion of privacy. Just as your sitting across the street with binoculars looking into someone's home.
Drones can be a wonderful thing, but need to be regulated. They should have clearly visible registration numbers just like aircraft, that way they can be reported if/when causing issues. Remember, Railroads are Federally regulated and if something happens that issue is to be reported to Homeland Security.
That being said, I wouldn't see a issue with being required to get permission to photograph trains or anything else.
If I see a drone flying over my house with out my knowledge, it had better be quite high as it may find it's self wrapped up in a bolo.

[CNJ Fan 4evr]

Anybody see that drone just miss the skier on the news. That is what I was envisioning happening to a fast moving train. I saw one bounce of a RBM&N passenger car on their steam trip in October. Thing bounced off car and landed in the road. Train was slowly crawling into Port Clinton so it only may have damaged the drone and/or camera.Not sure. However, if the train was cruising at track speed, things could have gotten really ugly.
I know a guy who shot at one with a pellet gun after it was found hovering over his PRIVATE PROPERTY that was posted NO TRESSPASSING. Idiot flying drone ignored multiple requests to stop so property owner took a shot at the drone. It soon left in a big hurry.

[GOLDEN-ARM]

having hit trees, cars and even a cinderblock in the windshield before, i can assure you, cnj4evar fan, a little plastic drone hitting a locomotive anywhere except maybe directly into the engineers head, isn't going to even be noticed, unless you actually saw it happen. windshields are bullet resistant, and are designed to withstand impacts. hitting a toy, isn't going to hurt anyone, except maybe the wallet of the guy who lost it. you need to worry about real problems, like, why are there no dunkin donuts built next to control points, where trains make regular stops?

[SemperFidelis]

As a pilot, what isn't going to be missed is when one of these cursed toys slams into the cockpit glass of a low flying commercial aircraft. It might not do much damage, but people will certainly sit up and take notice.

Also, it can't be too long before some idiot making some kind of movie hurts someone in a car or commercial truck when it gets hit doing 80.

Edit: It's already happening along the border...but once people realize on the local level just how very useful these little devices can be to the smarter breed of drug dealer / distributor, then something will get done.

[Ken W2KB]

As a pilot, what isn't going to be missed is when one of these cursed toys slams into the cockpit glass of a low flying commercial aircraft. It might not do much damage, but people will certainly sit up and take notice.

Also, it can't be too long before some idiot making some kind of movie hurts someone in a car or commercial truck when it gets hit doing 80.

Edit: It's already happening along the border...but once people realize on the local level just how very useful these little devices can be to the smarter breed of drug dealer / distributor, then something will get done.

Agree! If one utilizes the FAA UAV/drone app one will find that in all but very remote regions or a few smaller spots in populated areas the flight location of the drone is within 5 miles of an airport (which includes helicopter facilities, not just fixed wing) and thus contact by the drone operator with the airport operator or air traffic control is legally required prior to flight. See: https://www.faa.gov/uas/where_to_fly/b4ufly/