If I am driving on a road, and a flying saucer with a spotlight is hovering ahead waiting to land, do I have to stop in the roadway and yield to them? Or do they have to yield to cars in the road? I checked my states driving manual and they don’t mention alien air/spacecraft at all.
I would guess that the UFO would have the right of way, as traffic would have to eventually stop for them anyways. Should I just stop in the roadway and put my hazards on so the flying saucer pilot is aware I am yielding the right of way to them?
I know it’s a joke question but here’s a serious answer:
I would treat it same as any other aircraft landing on the roadway. Give them space to do their thing because objects of greater potential energy ALWAYS have right of way, regardless of what liability laws say. Can’t sue ‘em if you’re dead.
As for laws, a quick search didn’t find anything in Federal or Alabama law about it except that the FAA here in the US says pilots consider it only as a last resort option due to safety concerns. If figure it’s probably not a common enough occurrence for laws to be made about it. Other states or counties may have something about it though.
I would imagine that legally, liability largely falls on the plane operator, though if you as a driver can avoid it, you would share in liability, perhaps moreso.
Sort of how you approach 3/4-way stop signs (god I hate them).
In my profession (trucking) the only thing that matters is preventable/nonpreventable. Liability is something for the insurance company to worry about (mostly).
This might be an interesting topic to suggest to Mike Rafi or Legal Eagle though.
But does the law give any rights to non human sentient extraterrestrial beings? If they are not a legal entity of any sort, this could lead to some interesting results.
Let’s say you ram into their ship, could anyone sue anyone? What if they evaporate your car with a doom laser cannon? Maybe that’s sort of like crashing your car into a rock, as far as blame is concerned.
Depending on the roadway, it’s super dangerous. Telephone and power lines are hard to see, deadly hazards for aircraft in that situation. If something is landing on a road, it’s probably an extreme emergency, and it’s best to give them as much room as possible.