> I think drones are close to the level of dangers of cars.
prosumer level drones are certainly a lot more dangerous than people who have only seen $40 toys would imagine, but i have to say this is a bit of a stretch. the mavic air you mention has a top speed of ~42 mph (although you won't find them traveling that fast for long) and weighs just under a pound. the maximum kinetic energy delivered is within a factor of two of a high school pitcher's fastball. the props can definitely cut you up bad, but it's not going to kill you unless it happens to hit a critical artery. this particular drone also happens to cost $800, fairly easy for a seriously interested professional to come up with, but most people are not buying a drone like this unless they plan to skip this generation of iphones. finally, a major reason why air travel is much safer than cars is that the airspace is actually quite sparse; there's just not that much stuff to run into if you're not near a major airport. when you consider all these factors together, it's not surprising that i can only find a handful of incidents where a bystander was seriously injured by a drone over the last 5 years, despite the fact that there are more unmanned than manned aerial vehicles in the US!
i don't know how you're going to compare this to a >3000 pound vehicle that routinely travels through densely populated areas at 30mph. the electric scooter would be a better comparison imo.
since i've already written a wall of text, i will say that i don't necessarily mind paying $200 and taking a course one time to be able to fly my drone with relative freedom. what i mind is having to call all 10 helipads (which may not even be operational) within 5 miles of me, one by one, every time i want to fly my drone 5 feet off the ground in my backyard.
prosumer level drones are certainly a lot more dangerous than people who have only seen $40 toys would imagine, but i have to say this is a bit of a stretch. the mavic air you mention has a top speed of ~42 mph (although you won't find them traveling that fast for long) and weighs just under a pound. the maximum kinetic energy delivered is within a factor of two of a high school pitcher's fastball. the props can definitely cut you up bad, but it's not going to kill you unless it happens to hit a critical artery. this particular drone also happens to cost $800, fairly easy for a seriously interested professional to come up with, but most people are not buying a drone like this unless they plan to skip this generation of iphones. finally, a major reason why air travel is much safer than cars is that the airspace is actually quite sparse; there's just not that much stuff to run into if you're not near a major airport. when you consider all these factors together, it's not surprising that i can only find a handful of incidents where a bystander was seriously injured by a drone over the last 5 years, despite the fact that there are more unmanned than manned aerial vehicles in the US!
i don't know how you're going to compare this to a >3000 pound vehicle that routinely travels through densely populated areas at 30mph. the electric scooter would be a better comparison imo.
since i've already written a wall of text, i will say that i don't necessarily mind paying $200 and taking a course one time to be able to fly my drone with relative freedom. what i mind is having to call all 10 helipads (which may not even be operational) within 5 miles of me, one by one, every time i want to fly my drone 5 feet off the ground in my backyard.