Over the moon about Amazon’s grounded drones

I was delighted to read Issue 613’s ‘Question of the Fortnight’ about the demise of Amazon’s crazy project to fly delivery drones. I’m no great fan of Amazon, but I would have objected to any retailer’s plans to drop items by air.

One of the arguments for drone deliveries was that it would mean fewer delivery vans clogging up the roads, but this is naive. If you gave shoppers a new delivery option (such as drones), it would encourage even more people to shop at Amazon, leading to more deliveries of every kind - vans, drones, and other Bond-style gimmicks. Maybe Amazon would eventually invent cars that turn into speedboats so they can deliver to oil rigs.

Online deliveries are a blight of modern life. I live in a little lane that seems to be permanently blocked by vans. These used to belong to gardeners, carpenters and builders. Now it’s Amazon, DPD, UPS and DHL.

I suspect one reason Amazon pulled the plug on the drone idea is that the company realised it would never be accepted by the authorities or the public. The former would be too worried about the risks to grant permission. Just one serious accident would have been enough to crush the project. Can you imagine the negative headlines?

As for the public, a small anti-social minority would have targeted delivery drones. Criminals are in an arms race with tech companies. Before long, they would have worked out how to bring down the drones and steal their cargo.