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Oregon punished an engineer for criticizing red-light cameras. He fought and won

washingtonpost.com

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Re: Oregon punished an engineer for criticizing red-light cameras. He fought and won

#21

Post by ataturk »

wonderwonder wrote: post #16

This is a pretty great way to stifle innovation and one of the most blatantly authoritarian programs I have seen. They are essentially saying that no one is allowed to advance technology within their state unless they adhere to their arbitrary rules including passing a test and "a work record of four years or more of technical work or engineering work under the supervision and control of a professional engineer." 4 y…

It's how totalitarians roll. You can't have upward mobility, you can't have a level playing field where people can take on the state and win with common sense. We need that, but it leaves the autocrats out of a job.

Re: Oregon punished an engineer for criticizing red-light cameras. He fought and won

#22

Post by sandermvanvliet »

Out of curiosity (and not really related to the article) but I’m kind of surprised to hear there is a formula for calculating how long(?) yellow lights are on and that it relates to a red light camera. AFAIK those cameras are hooked into the control system and only activate when the light is red, which seems like a pretty binary decision. Can someone shed some light on this?

Re: Oregon punished an engineer for criticizing red-light cameras. He fought and won

#23

Post by [deleted] »

kayfox wrote: post #5

I can see how the State of Oregon would be annoyed that an unlicensed environmental engineer would be touting his engineering credentials when arguing with licensed civil engineers, especially since the State of Oregon licenses engineers. Engineering is a field where if you mess up, people may die, so just as we license doctors, we license engineers.

[deleted]

Re: Oregon punished an engineer for criticizing red-light cameras. He fought and won

#24

Post by mikepurvis »

rgbrenner wrote: post #2

That's just insulting... the state says they acted unconstitutionally.. so they offered him $500 -- which is just a refund of the fine he already paid -- and asked the court to dismiss the case. After he had to pay 4 years of lawyers fees, take them to court, etc. It's just a big FU, and I have no doubt they won't change a thing if they successfully get the court to dismiss it. If the court allows this, then the stat…

He's probably just done with the whole thing at this point, but I suppose he'd have to counter-sue to recover the money? You'd think it would be an easy case— he was unfairly attacked and incurred costs as a result, therefore the entity doing the attacking needs to pony up.

Re: Oregon punished an engineer for criticizing red-light cameras. He fought and won

#25

Post by ArialAnemone »

mulle_nat wrote: post #6

The two biggest dangers in life: scorned women and inconvenienced bureaucracies.

In this day and age, often the same.

The older I get, the more I understand Turner's thesis on the frontier. Without a frontier, ambitious people turn into ever-more specialized rentiers, trying to squeeze the golden goose as hard as they can before it dies.

Seasteading, space, personal nanomachine universal constructors, or bust. Otherwise I'd welcome the destruction of, to paraphrase Nietzsche, the insane asylum of modern civilization.

Give us twenty thousand years. Maybe we'll be able to breed beings who have a high enough IQ to navigate a ”modern” world without various social status systems going completely insane.

Re: Oregon punished an engineer for criticizing red-light cameras. He fought and won

#27

Post by bob_theslob646 »

zitterbewegung wrote: post #11
rgbrenner wrote: post #2

That's just insulting... the state says they acted unconstitutionally.. so they offered him $500 -- which is just a refund of the fine he already paid -- and asked the court to dismiss the case. After he had to pay 4 years of lawyers fees, take them to court, etc. It's just a big FU, and I have no doubt they won't change a thing if they successfully get the court to dismiss it. If the court allows this, then the stat…

The best tool in any court case is time.

Seriously, this. It is such bs, since most lawyers are incentivized to take as much time as necessary since they work on an hourly basis.

Re: Oregon punished an engineer for criticizing red-light cameras. He fought and won

#28

Post by 0x445442 »

Photo traffic tickets are just another tool for those with a monopoly on force to steal money from people. Fortunately, in Arizona the state is still required to serve in person in order for the ticket to be binding. My wife and I have got for or five of these tickets in the mail over the years. We just throw them in the trash.

Re: Oregon punished an engineer for criticizing red-light cameras. He fought and won

#30

Post by tantalor »

rgbrenner wrote: post #2

That's just insulting... the state says they acted unconstitutionally.. so they offered him $500 -- which is just a refund of the fine he already paid -- and asked the court to dismiss the case. After he had to pay 4 years of lawyers fees, take them to court, etc. It's just a big FU, and I have no doubt they won't change a thing if they successfully get the court to dismiss it. If the court allows this, then the stat…

Unsurprisingly, exceeding one's authority is not a crime.
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