I was in this small quiet village about 15 miles away from where I live and was aware of this interesting looking disused factory like building and wanted to fly over it. I was looking for a place to TOAL and saw that many of the pavements were too narrow and had walls at the side and so that was risky, there were also telegraph wires nearby and so I had to ensure I was clear of those. The best I could do was this wide opening in front of a house. But I didn’t think about the fact that there was a drive behind me and anyone could pull in at any time, that was foolish of me. I was about to send it up and had my finger on the button on the screen, the green circle was half way around and then I heard a car pulling into the drive and looked over and saw the drone just centimeters away from the cars wheel. I knew it was done for and it got crushed by the car.
The driver get’s out of the car and looks back and sees the destroyed drone and looks over in shock. I can’t blame him though, he was just driving onto his drive which is fair enough and could not see the drone on the ground. Wasn’t his fault. If anything it was my fault for choosing to TOAL in front of a driveway. He asks why it was on the ground. I said “I was about to send it up” and he asks if it’s okay. I end up telling him that it was all fine and the guy should not worry about it as it’s under the care package and can be replaced for a small fee (which I would pay). He said he thought I was standing there waiting and he had no idea that the drone was there. My eyes were on the phone screen at the time as I was milliseconds away from taking off and so I didn’t have time to react and inform him. The guy felt bad about it, I could tell. Looks like I’ll have to send it into the “repair” place. I say that with quotation marks because it’s so battered they’ll just bin it and send me a new one, it’s absolutely destroyed. I managed to recover the SD card out of the drone, hope that’ll be okay as there are files on there I don’t really want to lose. As for the level of damage, it’s so bad that the hinge for the battery cover has snapped and is stuck half way open and so the battery is stuck inside the drone. It won’t be flying around any time soon. I’ll try to attach some photos of the state of the drone for those interested, it’s bad!
If there is anything we can all learn from this, never TOAL in front of a driveway or anywhere else where cars come in and out, no matter how frequently. I am now without a drone for a week or two because I was careless enough not to realise. No disrespect to the driver, it wasn’t his fault. At least it wasn’t a few feet off the ground and smashed into his windscreen, then we’d have been swapping details!
Absolutely. Dodgy ground or location, launch and retrieve by hand is, IMO, the best option. 
