There are similar regulations flight standards here in the GWN. I cringed when it flew out over the road.
There are rules for airplanes as well. Pilots may follow the rules, or they may not to their own peril.
Minimum altitude for normal flight is 1000 ft agl, except for landing and taking off. Therefore, aircraft would not be so close to that road, unless it was beside an airport.There is an exception for training flights of minimum 500 ft agl.
However, my garage is not a training area, and training below minimums is not allowed; I suspect detection notices have been issued to certain aircraft owners (The owner gets the notice when it is not possible to identify the pilot).
UAVs are regulated differently from manned aircraft, and it is those differences that make for much of the confusion, even among people who fly them.
In general, the regulating bodies are trying to keep UAVs
below any
reasonably expected flightpath of a manned aircraft. Current FAA regs state a 400 foot mandatory ceiling for recreational UAV flight, and if flying FPV, you are still supposed to have a line-of-sight spotter in direct communication with you.
As you might imagine, it can be very difficult to stay below such low ceilings while at the same time staying high enough for safety of people and property.
Most UAVs flown for recreational use will be one of two types; either waypoint-navigation types which follow a programmed flight path and fly mostly autonomously (usually used for Aerial Cinematography, aerial tourism, or as a personal action photography platform) and spend most of their time in a hover, or a directly piloted aircraft which is mostly being used in Fast Forward Flight modes and essentially respond like a plank except when sticks are centered to force a hover.
To add to the confusion, waypoint-navigation types of UAV can usually be taken over and flown manually at any time for any of the above purposes, though generally tend to be really bad at the FFF modes which are popular among acro FPV pilots.
Safe piloting of these two types of craft follows different tactics dependent on state; a hovering UAV requires that you always consider the flight path as if it were a brick and could fall straight down (allowing for it to be pushed around by the wind gods) at any time in case of power failure.
Flying an acro quadcopter like these in FFF mode one has to consider the likelihood of power failure causing it to fall, yes, but also to have sufficient forward momentum that it can carry the craft much further forward of its location at the time of failure.
mnem
*toddles off to ded*