I am part of a group of people (a very large group I suspect) that Australia's Civil Aviation Safety Authority (CASA) have included in a consultation process which is trying to formulate a sensible, yet sufficiently robust regulatory environment for all forms and levels of drone flying. Talking to the CASA people involved, Its very obvious that they don't want more rules, but changes in society, the industry at large and individual peoples actions are forcing them into it, so they are acting before there is a serious accident and / or big government reacts to public perception and forces them to bring in ill founded, quickly drawn up laws that will make our lives worse and kill things for everybody.
Here in Australia many (but not all) of the new and / or unlicensed hobby fliers I talk to do not realise that laws exist and that their flying "toy" can actually injure or even kill people. I recently witnessed a guy buy 3
Mavic Mini 2 combos as toys, 1 for each of his kids, after they had played with a friends
Mini 2. They were 5. 7 and 9 years old!. A$3000+ in one shopping expedition. He was not a flier, and all the parks within a reasonable radius are popular spots used every day by dog walkers, soccer and Aussie rules football teams, skate boarders, joggers, you name it. For many people, money is not a barrier to anything. Look at the number of kids and teenagers on electric scooters and bikes driving around our footpaths (sidewalks) at crazy speeds, with no
apparent need tor licence plates, training or speed limits. If they injure you and drive off, the law has virtually no way of catching them.
After I retired from the military I worked in high level engineering project management (for Lockheed Martin + foreign governments). With them, I often worked in places where a law didn't exist until a local official decide you were breaking it. I always slept well at night and retained my sanity. Looking for a quieter life, I retired from this and started a new career in a more peaceful and relaxed industry.
The public perception of "rights" and over inflated sense of expectations led to verbal abuse, physical abuse, insults, complaints, rants and ravings and the belief that, even though they were untrained, uneducated, unskilled and new to the experience, they knew everything, saw no need for doing things the correct way and that seasoned and trained experts new nothing. This eventually gave me severe PTSD which took me 3.5 years of treatment to get over. The job? I ran the areas No1 suburban garden centre for a major retail company!! Like this statement or not, but by far the worst age group for this ? The pensioners!!! (I am 67 by the way). Rarely were they happy and nothing was ever good enough. Younger team members would often be shocked at their treatment.
My motto now is" The more I see of people, the more I like my drone".
We now live in a world where even Pansies and a peaceful environment do not guarantee a quiet life.