Editorial: Quit this dangerous game of drones

Ah, technology. There have been more amazing advances in our lifetimes than in any previous period.

As the website bigthink.com puts it: "For the vast majority of human existence, it was safe to assume that the world in which you died would look pretty much the same as the one in which you were born. But that is no longer the case."

Try explaining the concept of WiFi to 1980s you. Or social media. Or parcel delivery by a flying robot.

It's almost impossible to imagine what the world will look like in 10 years, but we can hope that by then idiots will have stopped using drones to chase horses and riders around paddocks.

As we reported on Saturday, horse riders and farmers are so annoyed by drone users flying their machines over their properties some are ready to shoot them out of the sky.

Dannevirke rider Keiasha McGhie told us her horses were left traumatised after several encounters with drones.

She said there was no sign of the people controlling the drones.

It seems there's no limit to the imagination when it comes to thinking up ways to be a menace to society.

Not only is this aerial harassment a danger to horses, it's a danger to any humans in the horses' vicinity, not to mention an invasion of privacy.

The CAA's rules on drones say you can't fly them over private property without consent from the property owner, and you can't fly them out of your line of sight without special authority.

Shooting them down certainly isn't the most responsible response, but it's not hard to understand why someone would want to.