Delivery drones are coming if Trump helps clear the way

There’s a new delivery system in town.Well ..

.maybe not in your town.In some places, drones are now allowed to deliver small packages, groceries and takeout.Companies like Wing and Zipline bring people hot meals in under 10 minutes.I had to watch it to believe it.Drone delivery makes sense: Drones are faster and usually more efficient than sending cars to people’s homes — why use a whole car and driver to transport a single burrito?Drone delivery was supposed to be common years ago.Jeff Bezos told “60 Minutes” he expected Amazon to be sending out drone deliveries by 2017.But most of us still don’t have it.Why?“Confusing regulations,” said Adam Thierer, author of “Permissionless Innovation.”The Federal Aviation Administration declared that drones may not fly “beyond visual line of sight” without special authorization.To fly a drone farther, you must get airline-level certification.The FAA must inspect your facilities, review operating and maintenance procedures and certify you as an air carrier.“It takes a lot of work from a company with the size and resources like Amazon to get these limited permits,” Thierer explained.“Would the Wright brothers have even gotten into the air if the Federal Aviation Administration existed when they were trying to fly for the first time? Unlikely!”Because it’s so hard to get permission, only eight companies now do drone deliveries.Of course, some people don’t want drones making deliveries near them.

I understand why. Some worry about invasion of privacy, about drones with cameras “spying” on them.Amazon tells people, “Our drones use cameras and other sensors to navigate, sense and avoid obstacles,” not to spy.   A bigger problem is that drones are often noisy.Companies like Wing say they’re making drones quieter and released a video about that.“We have trucks and delivery men come to our driveways every single day and we’ve just gotten used to it,” Thierer pointed out....