Originally Posted by
Ian W
One person killed by an Amazon UAS and all the investment will be wasted. I cannot see this delivery UAS idea passing even a cursory safety assessment. That is before we get to the security acceptance of anonymous autonomous UAS flying 5lb packages around major cities like DC, New York or London.
You are not thinking this through intelligently.
Currently, vast numbers of packages are delivered by road vehicles. Those vehicles kill people on a daily basis.
Note, not
might kill.
Not have potential to kill.
They
do kill.
1 million people die in road accidents every year.
Delivery vehicles are involved in those statistics.
A quick perusal online finds this document from the UK Office of National Statistics.
https://www.gov.uk/government/upload...36/ras20001.xl
Some Amazon drones will undoubtedly fall out of the sky.
Of those that do, a vanishingly small amount of them (the surface of the earth covers many millions of square feet, and relatively few of those feet have a person standing on them) will actually hit a person.
Of that tiny number, some will be hurt.
Of that number, some will die.
That "some will die" would be a big deal if they were
extra deaths, but they are not. They are
potential drone of Damocles deaths compensated for by the reduction in
actual road delivery deaths.
A look at the table linked suggests that Amazon drones can kill at least 2000 people per year before we should consider them a more dangerous option than light delivery vehicles.......
p.s. Your point about security doesn't even bear the briefest consideration.
Does it make a difference to you if a drone rather than a delivery man delivers your bomb or sarin?