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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

#161

Post by dsfyu404ed »

wandernotlost wrote: post #154
overhang wrote: post #145

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The right lane is for people driving below the maximum speed limit. The second lane from the right is for people driving faster than people in the right lane. The left lane is for people driving the maximum speed limit. People weaving in and out of the left lane so they can pass people who are driving at the maximum allowed speed are a problem. Because instrumentation is imperfect, two drivers who believe they are dr…

No. Stop it. This attitude is consistently responsible for the most dangerous road conditions I see driving in America. Keep right except to pass. Period. Everybody traveling the same "maximum speed limit" is a fantasy and rarely exists in reality. There are lots of good reasons for traveling over the speed limit (quickly passing to avoid prolonged travel in close proximity to another car, for example). Left lane cru…

Thank you for posting this because it saved me a lot of typing.

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

#162

Post by briffle »

manyxcxi wrote: post #75
ajmurmann wrote: post #51

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

Growing up in Oregon I was always annoyed by the slow as hell left lane campers. Having spent a half decade elsewhere and recently moving back it has escalated from annoyance to blood boiling seething rage. When I left Seattle, the state of WA was really making a push to get slowpokes out of the left lane with a media campaign and instituting tickets for people who are slowing traffic down. I LOVE the idea.

I moved back to OR from the Midwest last spring.. its maddening that all 3 lanes seem to travel within 3-5 mph of each other, usually right at the speed limit (or lately, in the dark at 5pm, under it), and nobody passes anyone..

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

#163

Post by CalChris »

joering2 wrote: post #72

Am I missing something? Isn't he eligible to recover reasonable attorney fees?

At this point, his attorneys (the Institute for Justice) are trying to get the law declared unconstitutional. And at this point, the state is trying to get the court case dismissed in order to avoid getting the law declared unconstitutional.

http://ij.org/

I don't think this is about attorney's fees anymore and Järlström won't be paying them.

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

#164

Post by jnordwick »

manyxcxi wrote: post #79
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…

Some of the original articles (that I’m too lazy to dig up and cite) stated that Oregon was telling him not to SAY that he was an engineer in his correspondence with them and in media portrayals because it’s a licensed profession. At some point people started reporting about how the state has basically used this licensing requirement as a way to gag people from publicly disclosing any kind of ‘technical’ information,…

https://reason.com/blog/2017/12/07/licensing-board-admits-th...

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

#165

Post by baldfat »

lotsofpulp wrote: post #135
baldfat wrote: post #106

Earlier quoted context omitted.

We have traffic due to lack of scientific understanding. http://www.science20.com/gerhard_adam/driving_traffic_and_tw... Traffic = Flow Rate (How many cars pass per minute pass a specific point) Traffic Solution is maintain proper distance. 2 seconds in good weather and 4 seconds when hazardous or 10 seconds when extremely unsafe weather/conditions. When people increase the distance between cars during traffic causes…

Thats why at any given speed, there is a maximum capacity of any road that when surpassed causes traffic, i.e. people speeding up and slowing down due to differences in each other's acceleration. This is unavoidable and the only solutions involve increasing everyone's speed, reducing # of vehicles, or making the road bigger.

Traffic happens when distances are increased. Someone sees a slight slow down and they then slow down and give 20 seconds of space (I have seen cars and trucks give 200+ feet of distance for some odd reason. Then the flow is cut down to 10 cars a minute instead of 120.

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

#166

Post by overhang »

logfromblammo wrote: post #131
throwawayjava wrote: post #86

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The slow drivers are no different than the fast drivers Bingo. You should be pissed at people who don't drive the speed limit .

Change that to median roadway speed, and I'll be on board. Speed limits are too often set by clueless folk for political concerns, rather than by traffic engineers for maximum throughput for a given safety factor. There should be some allowance for ensuring that the median speeds of adjacent lanes have a good range separation. I can't even count how many times I have seen a tractor-trailer in the left lane at 70 mph…

> I can't even count how many times I have seen a tractor-trailer in the left lane at 70 mph passing a tractor-trailer in the right lane at 69 mph, as passenger cars stack up behind them. It creates a dangerous situation that I can only avoid by slowing down or exiting the roadway.

Presuming the max speed was 70mph, your post epitomizes the real danger. Traffic should not stack up behind vehicles traveling at the maximum allowed speed. Or at least, it should not stack up in a dangerous way. Twenty vehicles stacked up at proper following distances, all traveling 70mph, is actually optimal. Yet you seem to disparage it. You will never achieve optimal traffic flow if the general attitude toward actual optimal patterns is disdain.

If the max speed limit was above 70mph, ignore the preceding paragraph.

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

#167

Post by pwg »

DoubleGlazing wrote: post #93
skadamou wrote: post #10

The whole business of red light cameras is pretty dubious to begin with. It seems more like a tool local municipalities use to tax through traffic rather than a means of protecting public safety. https://www.npr.org/sections/thetwo-way/2013/08/13/211723717...

I live in Ireland and recently my wife got a speeding ticket having supposedly been caught by a mobile speed detector van. She was pretty certain that she hadn't been speeding as she knows the particular stretch of road is notorious for hidden speed traps. The court summons photo had the GPS co-ordinates of the vans location embedded in the corner. So I types them in to Google Maps and it supposedly showed that the v…

If you have to do this again at any point, you will likely find more success if you attack the accuracy of the speed measuring equipment, and specifically any traceable calibration of that equipment. Calling into question the accuracy of the GPS location fix in the photo did not directly say anything about the speed measuring device. This is because the speed measurement device was very likely not the GPS locator unit that stamped the photo. The speed measuring device was likely an independent radar or laser unit. The prosecution should bring with them proof that the unit had been field tested that day to verify correct functioning andd field accuracy, and as well should bring the calibration evidence showing professional calibration of the speed measurement device. But unless you question the speed measurement device itself, they have no reason to say much about the calibration status of the device. And since most defendants argue simply "I wasn't speeding" the prosecutors sometimes get lazy and leave the calibration documentation behind. If you question the calibration and they don't have the requisite evidence, then you've got something you can use to convince the judge to rule in your favor.

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

#168

Post by briffle »

flyinghamster wrote: post #77
uniformlyrandom wrote: post #65

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> most native Oregonians would be fine constantly because they drive insanely slow And this is why they do not want you to drive slow. The difference of speed between cars is what causes accidents. This is why speed limits are raised based on 90th percentile speeds. And this is why everyone in California drives 80 in 65, and CHP are apparently OK with that.

75-80 in a 65 (or even 55) is common in the Chicago area too, except in traffic jams. If you're not going at least 70 when you merge onto the highway, you're gonna get run down. I think the cops are fine with it, since it provides a perfect pretext for a traffic stop if they want you for some other reason.

Chicago's freeways have two speeds, 35 and 80, and they switch between the two in 100 yards or less..

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

#169

Post by Sargos »

rayiner wrote: post #47
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.

You can’t change the underlying economics of a market by changing your billing model. All the billing model does is change the risk allocation between the parties. Court cases take a long time because each judge handles hundreds of cases (and civil cases take a back seat to criminal cases). Briefing on a motion, for example, might be done over a few weeks. Then the parties just sit and wait possibly for months for a…

Why don't we just hire more judges?

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

#170

Post by CalChris »

En_gr_Student wrote: post #99

I think the guy was out of line. I'm an engineer. I had to put at least a decade of my life, 1/8 if stats are right, into freaking hard work to earn the right to use the title, and the skill-set to not kill people while doing it. That guy is a slap in the face to every engineer who had to work for their credentials instead of "name it and claim it" in the name of "free speech". This is like shouting "fire in a theate…

If you believe that Järlström misrepresented himself then, like the State of Oregon, show us the quote where he did so.
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