California Legislation Would Require License Plates, Insurance For Drones (arstechnica.com) 151
An anonymous reader writes: A pair of legislators in California have introduced separate pieces of legislation aimed at further regulating the nascent drone industry in the name of safety. Assemblyman Mike Gatto wants inexpensive insurance policies sold with drones, and also wants those drones to be outfitted with tiny license plates. He said, "If cars have license plates and insurance, drones should have the equivalent, so they can be properly identified, and owners can be held financially responsible, whenever injuries, interference, or property damage occurs." Another bill, put forth by Assemblyman Ed Chau, wants to require drone owners to leave contact information in the event of a crash. Chau also made parallels with cars: "If you lose control of your drone and someone gets hurt – or someone else's property gets damaged — then you should have the same duty to go to the scene of the accident, give your name and address, and cooperate with the police." The bills follow a number of incidents during 2015 in which drones damaged people and property, or simply got in the way of other operations.
Future legislation will require... (Score:4, Funny)
...turn signals, mirrors, and a working horn.
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Re:Future legislation will require... (Score:5, Insightful)
Well, why not the aeronautical equivalent for the bigger ones, at least.
Sure, it's easy to mock and say "because California", but this time the boys from the land of nutjob legislation have a point.
I impulse-bought a cheap drone I came across in the store to see what the fuss was about; no GPS or fancy self-guidance, just a remote control.
Damn, that thing was hard to control at first, and I used to fly jet fighters - albeit a long time ago.
So perhaps this is actually a better suggestion than the FAA "self-registration" scheme.
Over a certain weight, you have to produce ID and included in the price is the registration fee and insurance for a year.
If I get my head stoved-in by somebody's out of control drone, at least the medical is covered...
Re:Future legislation will require... (Score:4, Insightful)
Yeah I really don't see this being bad, it is strangely coherent for legislators.
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Here's what you need to know:
> inexpensive ...for now.
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inexpensive ...for now.
This sums up pretty much all california legislation that puts the burden on citizens to register something.
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Technically they stopped just one bit short. They should also require the equivalent of https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/... [wikipedia.org]. So a policing query signal can be sent to the drone and a response received back of it's registration (it already has transmitters and receivers built in). This unique identifier should tie back to the registered owner. No response and down goes that drone, taking out by a police hunter drone killer drone in a safe manner. If the drone is doing something naughty and a proper response r
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You *could* put in an equivalent of an IFF box in civilian drones, but much like a MAC addy in network cards, it will probably be spoofed at first opportunity by someone wanting to use their drone for less-than-moral purposes. See also IMEI number mods in stolen phones as a real-world example.
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Make it illegal and when the owner responds that their drone is not active 'er' pick up the pieces and find out whose drone it really is ;).
Re:Future legislation will require... (Score:4, Insightful)
I still don't see why people are so freaked out over the toy R/C Aircraft getting more popular these days, despite some idiot changing the name to 'drone'.
You know they've been flying those things since before I was even born.
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and insurance for a year.
I'm still struggling with this one.
Cars in California in 2013: 3,104 Persons Killed 223,128 Persons Injured.
Drones in California: 0 Persons Killed: 0 Persons Injured (that I could find). I'm willing to guess damages can be counted in the hundred or thousands of dollars.
What next, we get terrorism insurance? Hell I'm more likely to die in a terrorist attack than a drone attack. Maybe we should be registering them instead.
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And a man walking 100 yards in front with a holding a lantern and waving a red flag.
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Well, how about the take on a more serious actual problem and require license plates, registration, insurance, and a proficiency test (to get a road license) for pushbikes?
I mean, they are reasonably often involved in real accidents, a proportion of which are their fault (lets not get in to an argument about what ratio).
Property damage happens, people are injured and killed, reasonably often.
If Cars and Motorcycles are required to follow rules to use the public roads, why not pushbikes?
Any no, I am most cer
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Pushbikes?
You mean a bicycle?
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And a sign that says: "This device may cause cancer."
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Don't forget the mandatory safety training class.
Odds are, someone on Slashdot will respond,"why not?"
Re:Future legislation will require... (Score:4, Insightful)
For certain weight classes, why not? If we start going above 3kg and you lose control of one of these, that's a small bowling ball hurtling back down toward the ground. For RC cars, you're on a 2D field. If you stall, you stall on your spot in 2D space and that's that. When you're playing in 3D on Earth, stalling means moving elsewhere, not staying put in the air (air friction without gravity) or maintaining the same velocity with no ability to course correct (space). Generally, that "elsewhere" is a location downward from wherever your drone or RC plane loses control.
I would personally think safety courses should be required for devices where the mortality risk is high, not just the risk of injury or minor property damage. Think 10+kg model airplanes.
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Hmm. I remember when there was a biggish earthquake in 1989 and the state voted to raise sales tax from 6% to 7.25% in order to pay for repairs to the SFO area. I also remember something along the lines of "this will only be active until the repairs are complete". I seem to remember it being active well into... well, it's currently 7.5%. It never went away. The parent is spot on.
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Sounds so simple,
Lets see you start coding that.
Should only take about 2 weeks right?
It's not about safety (Score:2, Flamebait)
Re: It's not about safety (Score:2)
They are required to be registered and marked by the FAA.
California typically charges essentially a property tax on aircrafts. Some try to avoid that by moving the aircraft out of state for most of the year.
Plus, a property tax on a $600 drone won't even be worth paying a bureaucrat to process it. I guess thats never stopped California before.
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Re: It's not about safety (Score:2)
Good luck. Charging fees on drones is hard. tablets are easy because they are easily classified and fully assembled. They are also sold from mainstream companies.
How are you going to do that with drones?
$2 fee on the motor I bought from China? $5 for the frame?
What's to stop you from 3d printing your own frame or buying a motor intended for an RC car?
Many drones are assembled from parts shipped and sold directly from China. This will be a regulatory nightmare.
It doesn't really even matter because no way Cal
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It's about revenue. Anything CA can do to get a bit more revenue - it will do.
I'd put greater weight on it being a gift to the plaintiff's bar. With a fat insurance company to go after instead of maybe just some unemployed schmuck with $1.14 in his checking account, there'll be a nice payday for everyone.
One word (Score:1)
One word... LOL!
Not going to happen (Score:5, Interesting)
States have always tried to regulate their own airspace, and the FAA keeps having to smack them down.
Seriously, if it's in the air states have no control.
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FAA has jurisdiction from the ground up within a prescribed and fairly small range of any airport, outside of that range the FAA's jurisdiction has not ever extended to anything below 500 feet.
For FAA to be able to regulate to the ground their jurisdiction has to extent to the ground. TFRs often (almost always?) extend from the ground up -- and TFRs are almost never within "a fairly small range of any airport".
This is not an issue of whether FAA has authority to regulate from the ground up, it is an issue of California requiring registration and identification of aircraft. FAA already requires registration and marking of UAV except those below a certain weight (and has much more stringent regist
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FAA regulates "navigable airspace".... an aircraft cannot generally navigate less than about 500 feet above the ground, particularly in an urban area, because it may crash into tall buildings.
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FAA regulates "navigable airspace"....
As you yourself pointed out, FAA regulates to the ground. That airspace surrounding airports is "surface", as are TFRs and things like flight restrictions around Division I NCAA stadiums that contain more then 30,000 people during, before and after football games. The "mode C veil" extends from the surface to 10,000' for a 30 nm radius from a class B airport. Surface.
I don't know how anyone can look at the existing FARs and think that FAA has no jurisdiction down to the surface. Only by ignoring all the "su
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My point is that if something tiny is flying below the height of nearby buildings anyways,
You claimed that FAA regulates "navigable airspace" only, which is patently false. You also claimed that they do not regulate below 500' (with some magical exemption "within a very small distance from an airport", or something like that). That is also patently false.
Your new argument that it is flying "below the height of nearby buildings", well, the FAA regulates that airspace, too. Thankfully so. Imagine some nitwit deciding to fly around the city of Portland or San Francisco at low altitude, trying to c
Re: Not going to happen (Score:2)
The FAA regulates what happens in the air but at some point drones need to land to do their job. Also, they need to be procured in the first place. States do have ways of enforcing this.
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but at some point drones need to land to do their job. Also, they need to be procured in the first place. States do have ways of enforcing this.
"California: We have a way of enforcing that you land... and that your drone be procured in the first place."
Now that's some nonsense that I could see California enacting... but I don't think it's what you meant.
CA involved in ownership not operations ... (Score:2)
States have always tried to regulate their own airspace, and the FAA keeps having to smack them down. Seriously, if it's in the air states have no control.
California taxes the owners of "real" aircraft, there are no FAA objections. California is generally dealing with ownership, the FAA generally dealing with operations. California would seem to be legally clear to require owners to license and insure their drones.
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Where did the founding fathers grant in the U.S. Constitution that the Federal government had the right to regulate the air? The Constitution states that all rights not specifically enumerated to the Federal government are to be left to the States. When did the SCOTUS settle this issue? Also It was my understanding the Federal government only regulated the air space above 500 feet, if that's the case then California is well within their right to regulate aircraft operating in the 0 to 500 feet ranage.
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Interstate commerce clause. Yes, I know it doesn't make sense, but there have been real supreme court cases. Here's a case saying the Feds can prevent you from growing your own crops, even if you never plan to sell them: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/... [wikipedia.org]
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That hasn't stopped them from trying to regulate things they don't understand before. Right now they are trying to ban the 'bullet button' as their previous ban on detachable magazines was so effective, just look at how great their gun regulation did at stopping the San Bernardino terrorist attack.
Re: Unnecessary regulations (Score:2)
In fact, they should extend this policy to home made, hand launched polymer and cellulose drone gliders (like paper airplanes). Just imagine if one of those got sucked into the engine of a 747 full of babies. That could kill like 350 babies when the plane explodes.
Only drones? (Score:5, Insightful)
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At the very least I would like to see bikes require to have visible license plates and drivers who are licensed and insured if they are to ride on the same roads as motorized vehicles, for the same reasons we require both for cars.
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except that those reasons don't exist for either bicycles or drones. The magnitude and incidence of damages/injuries caused by cars is large and often more than most people could pay for, that is not *generally* true of bicycles or drones (which for normal people are quad-copters).
The lack of insurance in no way changes any aspect of liability for damages Insurance serves to "insure" that you could have the resource to pay for them.
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Except that 9 times out of 10 the car is going to get blamed, no matter how stupid the bike rider is who is more concerned over their perceived rights than physics.
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This,
Nearly nobody paid attention when they drove before Cell phones were a thing. I have ridden on the sidewalk at all times regardless of what the cops said about it.
The laws of physics give no shits about the whimsy of mans laws and the citation for those violations are rarely pleasant.
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You forgot guns.
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Just in case they damage other people's property, the following things will also be required to have insurance and little license plates: RC aircraft/cars, baseballs, tennis balls, frisbees, nerf darts, shuttlecocks, boomerangs, bullets, your child's bike, and your child.
If, one day, these weight >2kg and can be *flown* and controlled over 100ft away, it would make sense to require insurance and license plates. As of now, the source of these things can be located pretty easily, and they (except bullets, unless it was thrown and not shot from a gun) did weight much and thus didn't cause much damage (compared to a drone).
Say, if you child's bike can fly and can drop and break someone's roof 100ft away from your and your child, you bet it would require a license.
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...baseballs, tennis balls, frisbees, nerf darts, shuttlecocks, boomerangs, bullets, your child's bike...
How many people run outside with their shotgun to shoot down baseballs, tennis balls, etc?
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Not many, but when the trap machine has been broken for a few weeks, you do what you have to.
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+1 Funny !!
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I think we should insure terrorist activities. I'm far more likely to die or get injured of that than I am from a drone.
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At last check, a drives license & insurance are not required to purchase outright or operate a vehicle... they are only required to do so on public roadways.
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If you load the vehicle up on a trailer, you can take it away without needing any insurance on the vehicle; as DaHat said, license, registration, and insurance are only required for vehicles operated on public roads. You can transport an unregistered vehicle on public roads anywhere you want to, as long as you don't drive it, and the vehicle can be completely unable to meet any of the safety requirements for registration.
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And which of these has the least regulation? And which has the higher chance of injuring or killing someone? Amazing that they want license plates and insurance for "model aircraft", but apparently you can buy a gun and just start shooting it, no safety classes, no training, not even a seatbelt required.
People have flown these model aircrafts next to airports and runways causing real aircrafts to be unable to take off and land causing huge inconveniences and costs to thousands of people. It is not just about what has the chance to injure or kill someone but costing whole industries lots of time and money.
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Which also opens up a whole can of worms as to:
1) Under what circumstances is it lawful for a civilian or police to shoot down a drone,
2) Over what objects below is it lawful for a civilian or police to shoot down a drone,
3) With what kind of weapon and projectile(s) is it lawful for a civilian or police to shoot down a drone.
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Mandatory Insurance for small model aircraft?... well, there's a risk of injury or property damage, but is it really any higher than the risk from a bicycle or skateboard? - All could kill in
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I was unaware that we had thousands of unattended guns just going off randomly.
So your average single shot hunting rifle will cost more in insurance than a standard AR variant? I assure you, your average 30-06 or 270 is far more powerful than any standard sort of AR.
"Capacity" you say is the difference? Just because you have a detachable magazine option (
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lower premiums for less powerful/lower capacity models, especially if kept in a secure gun cabinet. Higher premiums for types of gun more likely to be involved in crime or accidents
I'd try and start correcting you but the sheer ignorance on display here is leaving me speechless. Perhaps you could provide some definitions and justification for "more powerful" or "higher capacity" and how this has any bearing whatsoever on likelyhood of the gun causing injury?
Isn't this already the case? (Score:3)
"If you lose control of your drone and someone gets hurt – or someone else's property gets damaged — then you should have the same duty to go to the scene of the accident, give your name and address, and cooperate with the police."
Don't drone operators *already* have to accept liability for damage/injury caused by their drone? With registration already mandatory, why will tiny little license plates improve anything? Those that are responsible will register their drone and will take responsibility for its operation. Those that are not responsible will just buy or print a fake "license plate" (or more likely, skip the license plate entirely) and fly their drone into a car and then walk away.
Big mistake. (Score:2)
Those that are not responsible will just buy or print a fake "license plate" (or more likely, skip the license plate entirely) and fly their drone into a car and then walk away.
and if the owner of the drone can be traced by other means, what then?
The geek's willingness to amp up a routine civil case into a criminal one is astonishing.
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Here in NL this is not mandated by law for drones or RC aircraft, but most RC clubs require that operators put their name and address on a sticker inside the aircraft, and require the operator to join the national aviator's association as an RC Pilot member. Membership is
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Don't people *already* have to accept liability for damage/injury caused by their activities?
Is America a country where I can just walk up and break your window and that's the end of it? No recourse?
This sounds better to me than the FAA thing (Score:1)
I think this makes more sense than the damn public registry thing the FAA wants - I think it makes sense that the drone should have some contact info on it even just for return to the owner in the event of a loss. Damage and injuries are pretty unlikely in most cases I think, I don't think insurance should be required but there should be some guidelines on penalties and things like that for the courts to follow in the event of disputes. I think this would be okay - mail off some registration card thats incl
This should work about as well as gun-free schools (Score:2)
This should work about as well as gun-free schools that have, like, TOTALLY prevented mass shootings.
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All the kids and teachers know about the signs, so they don't bring their weapons with them.
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To their credit, the folks bringing the guns haven't been there before, so they didn't get a chance to see the signs.
The laws prohibiting firearms within, what is it, 1000 feet of schools have been in effect for how many years? And got flogged around the media outlets like there was no tomorrow as the solution to armed violence at schools when they were enacted, so the likelihood that they didn't know that just having a gun there was illegal. But if they've already decided that they're going to shoot someone, do you really think that the illegality of carrying the gun where they intend to carry out the shooting is going t
Understandable, Given.. (Score:2)
[Understandable, given]...that California is infamously-corrupt, that those in government want to curtail the public's ability to observe their actions, so that when questions from the public about government actions/policies/procedures/etc arise, what they tell us does not have to match what they do.
Of course, very few of those in government have a problem with government using the same technology to enable them to observe anybody they wish as long as "Department 'A'" (FISA courts, etc) gives permission to
Go to the scene... (Score:2)
you should have the same duty to go to the scene of the accident
Stupid idea from politician not engaging brain.
In a car (in most places) you are required to not-leave the scene of the accident, and (most places) that requirement only applies when driving on a public highway (or equivalent concept). In most cases the crash site is on, or very nearly on, public property. This won't be the case with drones, at all. The crash site may be inaccessible, dangerous to access, illegal to access or just plain private property, and drone pilots already have been TTFO at gunpoin
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If you're flying some big 10 pound commercial octocopter and it falls from the sky over a crowd of kids, but you didn't see exactly where it landed--I'd say you have a moral obligation, and quite possibly a legal one, to go take responsibility for whatever happened instead of driving off before you get caught.
AMA Insurance + FAA Registration (Score:2)
$2.5 Million Liability Umbrella
$25,000 Medical Coverage
$1,000 Fire and Theft Coverage
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I consider my AMA insurance more than sufficient, and I indent to sue California if the insurance requirements become unreasonable.
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I consider my AMA insurance more than sufficient, and I indent to sue California if the insurance requirements become unreasonable.
Insurance is something that is generally used for statistically likely and expensive events. Given the epic number of drone deaths (0) and major injuries (0) to 3rd parties I think we should instead be mandating for insurance against terrorist attacks. It makes far more sense.
Home many injuries? (Score:2)
Are people getting injured from rogue drones? Has there even been an unusual amount of property damage?
Why is the legislature trying to regulate something that is potentially a non-issue? What happened to the old days when legislatures wrote laws in response to case rulings and tried to solve demonstrable problems instead of imaginary problems?
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They are being compared to cars so I can only conclude that drones have caused 220000 injuries last year and 3000 deaths in California alone. That's why it's being compared to cars right?
Any Excuse To Tax (Score:2)
Alternative (Score:2)
If I can snag your drone while it's over my property, I can keep it.
Nothing but pandering to hysteria. (Score:2)
This is a good example of why I hate our 24/7, 90-second segment, pandering for ratings, news cycle. RC aircraft have been around of a long time..
What about supremacy (Score:3)
Wouldn't the concept of federal supremacy and the fact that the FAA is already chartered with this responsibility by congress prohibit California from enforcing such regulations?
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The U.S. Constitution provides that federal laws are the "supreme law of the land." In the context of aviation, the doctrine of field preemption—that state action is preempted because Congress intended to occupy the entire regulatory field—has been held by many courts to generally prohibit state regulation of aircraft safety and operations. Underlying this position is that the U.S. government by statute "has exclusive sovereignty of airspace of the United States." As the Supreme Court explained more than 40 years ago in an opinion invalidating a locally imposed curfew on aircraft noise, "a uniform and exclusive system of federal regulation" is required "if the congressional objectives underlying the Federal Aviation Act are to be fulfilled." Thus, in the context of aviation, federal preemption long has been understood to sweep with a wide broom.
How the Summary Should Have Started (Score:2)
A pair of legislators in California have introduced separate pieces of legislation aimed at grabbing more money from the state's citizens...
FTFY
Err... NO! (Score:2)
There shouldn't even be license plates on cars. Cars can be manufactured with permanent ID numbers right out of the factory. Getting a title reissue would tie a person to the ID. The whole state plates system is a big revenue scam. And now they want to do it to drones? This keeps up much more and I guarantee they will soon be requiring us to register every computer b/c "cyber-security".
Not unreasonable. (Score:2)
If Amazon and Dominos and whoever else are going to be peppering the sky's of metro areas with autonomous delivery drones, I don't think it is unreasonable for those companies to be required to have some type of insurance policy to cover the inevitable but unexpected accidents, things caused by birds or weather or malfunction or LiON battery fires or who knows what else. I sure do not think my home insurance should take a hit because a bird flew into an Amazon drone over my house and it crashed through my s
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I don't think it is unreasonable for those companies to be required to have some type of insurance policy to cover the inevitable but unexpected accidents
Why? Companies are typically the entities which can afford to pay for such damages out of pocket without requiring insurance?
The only thing dumber than mandating insurance for people with the money to cover it themselves, and the resources to know if they need it in the first place, is mandating insurance for something that so far has shown absolutely no signs of causing death, major injury or property damage. Terrorism has caused all of the above, maybe we should force mandatory terrorism insurance.
And the pointless money grab accelerates! (Score:2)
Oh give me a fucking break.
This is just a fucking revenue scam. Nothing more.
I think we're well past "blood from a stone" and now working on "blood from nothing".
Greedy fucks...
Drone is already covered (Score:2)
Last I checked, my homeowners policy covers liability due to model aircraft. The personal liability part of the policy excludes aircraft, but the exclusion itself has an exclusion for model aircraft that do not carry passengers or cargo. So why should I pay an extra cent or dollar or whatever?
Of course insurance on model aircraft is tiny because, despite all the noise, they aren't a big liability issue. While a few have been dropped on people (mostly by idiots), that's a very, very few. The larger camer
32K vehicle fatalities per year in the U.S. (Score:1)
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Cali just wants your money, it's not unheard of to have 1000 dollar yearly car registrations there.
Well yeah, if your car is brand new and you paid over $138,000 for it. Otherwise, not so much [ca.gov].
I'm with you, though, on the ease of getting a driver license. I have personally witnessed people taking tests at the local DMV office being allowed to use "translators" who were openly coaching them on the correct answers.
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This. The legislature will couch this in terms of safety (can't someone think of the children?), but as a California resident my default bias on this kind of stuff is the real reason probably has something to do with raising revenue.
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I've lived in CA all my life. Never paid more than a few hundred/year in registration fees. And that was on a new car. Older cars can be under $100 per year. Not doubting it can happen, but 1000 dollar registration must be a very expensive vehicle. Exotic sports car or something. If you can afford the car, you can afford the registration.
Have I been trolled?
By the way, non citizen licenses have a notice "Federal Limits Apply" on the front and something else on the back.
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is california so hard up???
Yes. Our legislators never miss an opportunity to impose a new fee (tax) on whatever the latest trend is in the name of safety, then gut the safety part of it and crank up the money collecting part of it a few years after it's established.