Electronics360: "Video: Would You Travel in a Drone Taxi?"

No way!

As an airplane and helicopter pilot, I would never fly in one of those.

If the engine quits, airplanes can glide, helicopters can autorotate.

In a drone, you are crushed meat (no wings to glide, no large, adjustable-angle rotor blades to autorotate).

Even a full airframe parachute won't save you at low altitudes.

Actually, just as the four rotor blades can lift you so they can retard your descent.

With a single bladed helicopter, auto rotation can result in the whole airframe rotating violently in the direction opposite to the blade if the tail rotor is defective for some reason. With four blades it is possible to actually control the pitch of the aircraft so that landing takes place in a level, albeit, abrupt fashion.

In the military, when training for combat static line parachuting, you have to jump from a 30 foot tower with a rope attached to what seems to be a tiny propeller. When this rotates, the energy it consumes is sufficient to prevent serious injury to the user when he/she hits the ground at the bottom of the descent.

So, too, these four rotors would be sufficient to prevent serious injury when descending and auto-rotating.

why not incorporate a parachute into the cockpit?

one could also detach the cockpit from the motor/battery frame which would make the chute smaller and therefore lighter (and safer).

Then this mode of air transportation could be safer than a copter or airplane.