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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

#51

Post by ajmurmann »

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…

Most annoyingly, as someone who lives in Oregon I don't want to pay for this. I certainly want the poor guy who tried to fix something broken to be hugely compensated. However, I want whoever did this to pay for it.

I also want then to stop focusing traffic tickets on speeding and instead fine people who cause traffic jams by not accelerating when entering the freeway or go unnecessary slow. But well that's of course never gonna happen and probably most native Oregonians would be fine constantly because they drive insanely slow...

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

#52

Post by testvox »

exabrial wrote: post #37

Hey guys, can we correct the title? It should be "Oregon punished man for Engineer claim, after criticizing their red-light cameras. He fought and won". The current title is very misleading.

He is an engineer, changing the title as you suggest makes it sound like he isn't.

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

#53

Post by dahart »

exabrial wrote: post #37

Hey guys, can we correct the title? It should be "Oregon punished man for Engineer claim, after criticizing their red-light cameras. He fought and won". The current title is very misleading.

Usually the titles I see changing are ones that were editorializing in the first place, sometimes because the original title is too long for HN. This one matches the article's title, so changing it is inappropriate unless it's egregious. In this case, I find your proposed title more confusing than the article's, I don't know what an engineer claim is.

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

#54

Post by leesalminen »

0x445442 wrote: post #28

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.

> Fortunately, in Arizona the state is still required to serve in person in order for the ticket to be binding.

Colorado as well.

> We just throw them in the trash.

This worked once for me. The second time, an off duty Sheriff's Deputy came to my house and served me.

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

#55

Post by program_whiz »

This is a clear case of using "well intentioned" laws to silence free speech. This supports the libertarian idea that we should reduce the size of government and regulation if possible, because given long enough and enough bureaucrats, fallible humans will exploit whatever mechanisms are available to them. People don't like criticism, especially when the criticism is of their work/policies and potentially threatens their livelihood, so giving them a way to easily stop critics is a bad idea.

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

#57

Post by bigchewy »

vermontdevil wrote: post #38
bob_theslob646 wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Umm no. Not all lawyers. They do take time because they want to win. And sometimes they have to be sure as some cases can be complicated.

Ummm unless lawyers somehow have evolved different brains than the rest of us, they, too, prefer to make more money vs less. So if they are billing hourly, then yes they all do want to spend more time. Now, they might fight against that urge (E.g. believing that spending less time on Client A will improve their reputation and lead to more clients) but your statement is naive re how incentives work

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

#58

Post by rocqua »

exabrial wrote: post #37

Hey guys, can we correct the title? It should be "Oregon punished man for Engineer claim, after criticizing their red-light cameras. He fought and won". The current title is very misleading.

Hacker news rules state the submission title should be the title of the piece being linked to.

At the moment this is the case.

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

#59

Post by patcheudor »

xigency wrote: post #43

I'm interested in this because I know PE exams exist and there are licensing bodies for engineers. But what I've heard from most people is that they are a waste of time and money for someone holding an engineering degree unless you are the person who rubber stamps things at the end. Does someone who knows more about professional engineering know if this law in Oregon is uncommon? Beyond a free speech argument, it see…

These are very popular laws in the US with every state having some level of certification requirement for certain professions.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Regulation_and_licensure_in_en...

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