At the risk of starting an argument, isn't it common sense? If there are people around, or likely to "pop up" from a building, out of a nearby street etc then you have to think carefully about flying there. The higher you go the further they can travel on the way to the crash site and the heavier they are the more damage they'll do on impact with anything . It's a different story of there are no people around, smashing a window is a bit different to hitting someone (or someone's child) in the head.
Seems like the 30m rule isn't a bad reference point. If you can't keep the separation, go find somewhere else to fly.

 

Its a really interesting subject. I was watching a drone fly a fairway from its take off position and hover over a public road while up to 150M in the sky. It looked quite safe from where i was observing and i know the equipment and the guys flying it are very responsible, but i though. What is safe and what is not safe? I mean laws of statistics means that you could be flying over farmland even and hit poor farmer joe who happens to be tending to the cows. So where do you draw the line? Do you not fly drones at all in any public place where people could be? albeit however unlikely? or do you roll the dice and just fly carefully. I think many people will do the later.

 

It is an interesting subject. Both CASA & others take a risk based approach and we do a lot of risk assessments at work. I find I'm thinking likelihood & consequence before I fly anything.
You can reduce the likelihood of something happening, but you can rarely reduce the consequence for a given set of circumstances. That doesn't mean something shouldn't be done either.
Risk assessment is what we used to call common sense......


Citizen #186