buy a couple of much more expensive - and much more data-secure - drones approved by the US military consider putting a small, cheap drone "in every [patrol] car" A West Coast policeman with a drone in his car took high-resolution photos of a big slip on a state highway in major floods in late 2019. Getting a handle on emergencies like this, and on crime scenes and road crashes, are among the drone pluses the reports outline. A significant hurdle is that there are a "wide range of circumstances" where police could be guilty of "trespass surveillance" in the air above private property (although fewer than one in 10 flights in the six-month trial in 2019-20 was for surveillance, and this was targeted, not general surveillance).