California Prepares New Drone Laws

Two California lawmakers have introduced two separate bills this week that would further regulate drones in America’s most populous state. If passed, one of the new state laws would require “tiny physical or electronic license plates” and inexpensive insurance, among other requirements. A second bill would compel drone pilots who are involved in incidents that damage property or injure people to leave their contact information—similar to what drivers must do following auto accidents.

The proposed laws are in response to a series of unfortunate mishaps involving drones across the Golden State in 2015: there were some unmanned aerial vehicles that got in the way of firefighting efforts, while another crashed into power lines in Hollywood, and yet another hit a baby in Pasadena.

The first bill, which was authored by Assemblyman Mike Gatto (D-Glendale), would require drone pilots to hold “inexpensive ($1, or so) insurance policies sold at the point-of-sale”—a press release compared it to automobile insurance.

Gatto’s bill, which has yet to be formally introduced with actual legislative text in the state assembly, would also require that all GPS-enabled drones “of a certain size” have an “automatic shut-off technology that would activate if approaching an airport.”

“I think 2015 showed us that in the era of democratized aviation, certain types of incidents will be fairly common,” he told Ars. “More and more people are buying these and that’s great. This is just like the 1920s when more and more people were buying cars, but I just think that we need some basic rules going forward.”