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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

#201

Post by olalonde »

trvlngwlbry wrote: post #133
manyxcxi wrote: post #75

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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've felt the same way about "slow as hell left lane campers" for years and thought that maybe — if states never did anything to fix it — there might be a commercial solution to fixing this. The idea I came up with awhile ago was to build a network of motorcyclists willing to attach a sign to the back of their bike, that reads (something like), "You're causing traffic by being in this lane at your speed - please move…

Or you can just flash your high beams, pass on the right lane, etc.

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

#202

Post by asteli »

trvlngwlbry wrote: post #133
manyxcxi wrote: post #75

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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've felt the same way about "slow as hell left lane campers" for years and thought that maybe — if states never did anything to fix it — there might be a commercial solution to fixing this. The idea I came up with awhile ago was to build a network of motorcyclists willing to attach a sign to the back of their bike, that reads (something like), "You're causing traffic by being in this lane at your speed - please move…

as a motorcyclist, i have another idea

get more people to ride motorcycles. an oft-cited study [1] shows that a 10% increase in motorcycle ridership would cut time lost to traffic by 63%

1: http://www.acem.eu/images/stories/doc/pressreleases/2011/PTW...

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

#203

Post by barrkel »

overhang wrote: post #145
slededit wrote: post #129

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Just stay in the right lane if everyone else is speeding and you don't want to. Oregon has minimum speed limits too though.

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…

You'll get fined for driving like that in many European countries, FWIW.

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

#204

Post by cname »

sandermvanvliet wrote: post #22

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?

In Oregon, yellow essentially means stop. A lot of Oregon transplants (and apparently many commentators in this thread) aren't aware of this.

http://www.oregonlive.com/commuting/index.ssf/2014/02/joseph...

https://www.oregonlaws.org/ors/811.260

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

#206

Post by phil21 »

czep wrote: post #184
pm90 wrote: post #176

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They recently passed a law in Texas that would fine these left-lane campers. I haven't noticed a change yet but hopefully eventually enough of these idiots get ticketed to send a message. Its incredibly infuriating; I can totally relate to your sentiment. But there's a special place in hell for those dummies who won't even listen when I blink my headlights, signalling politely to them to please leave the left lane. A…

> But the 20% that don't, I flip them off every time, since they fucking deserve it. Man, that's harsh! If these victims of yours are doing 45 on the interstate then a flash and a honk is certainly in order, but I sincerely hope you're not acting this way to people doing 75 when you want to be doing 90. In any case, if someone's going a little slower than you, as long as it's not jeapordizing your safety (i.e. backin…

> I sincerely hope you're not acting this way to people doing 75 when you want to be doing 90.

Rate of speed is irrelevant. If you are not actively passing a vehicle, you have zero reason to be in the left lane. This assumes something resembling fairly open roads - stop and go traffic of course is wildly different.

What is a safe speed is a different discussion. So many folks have the attitude of "I'm doing 8 over already! They shouldn't be going faster than me! I'm not moving over! I'll show them!" while acting like a petty highway vigilante. Nevermind they are the most dangerous person on the road as people blow by them in the right lane rightfully pissed off.

> A little civility and due regard

And I would say the same. Left lane hugging may be one of the most unsafe behaviours on the road aside from not moving over when someone is stopped on the shoulder - and I've noticed a high correlation between the drivers who do neither.

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

#207

Post by thomastjeffery »

trhway wrote: post #173
manyxcxi wrote: post #79

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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,…

>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. according to Oregon's own gov website the licensed profession is "Professional Engineer". Seems like a similar difference between Registered Nurse and just a nurse. http://www.oregon.gov/osbeels/obtaining/Pages/default.aspx

> Seems like a similar difference between Registered Nurse and just a nurse.

That is a distinction that was invented by the state.

Calling yourself an "engineer" is unspecific, and is not a claim to authority, but to knowledge. To claim that it is suddenly a specific claim to authority is to redefine the term.

When you redefine a common term, and punish someone for not knowing you did so, that is a real problem. In this case, that was simply done to delegitimize him, which is clearly malicious.

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

#208

Post by thomastjeffery »

olalonde wrote: post #201
trvlngwlbry wrote: post #133

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I've felt the same way about "slow as hell left lane campers" for years and thought that maybe — if states never did anything to fix it — there might be a commercial solution to fixing this. The idea I came up with awhile ago was to build a network of motorcyclists willing to attach a sign to the back of their bike, that reads (something like), "You're causing traffic by being in this lane at your speed - please move…

Or you can just flash your high beams, pass on the right lane, etc.

> pass on the right lane

Unless there is someone in that lane going the same speed, or slightly slower, which is very common in a two-lane road near where I live.

There are also people who drive rather dangerously out of frustration when they cannot pass, making the entire situation more dangerous. The problem is that the slow drivers have been taught that "driving slow = correct", and that everyone around them must be doing it wrong.

If we put half of the focus we do with speed to things like this, our roads would be much better for it.

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

#209

Post by cname »

mirceal wrote: post #114
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…

How is talking about this going to kill people? Does this guy get to decide how to set the traffic cameras? He is just expressing his opinion. + he wasn't trying to commit a crime, he was trying to have a discussion with the state about their scummy practices. the "is/is not engineer" was just a pretext to tell him to STFU. Personally I don't think that being an engineer changes anything he said/did. If random Joe wa…

I think the argument is something along the lines of: the public hears that an engineer is making certain claims and then push for the laws to be changed. Running of yellow/red lights ends up killing a lot of people. Perhaps without this passive enforcement, more people would die.

Having read some local news about the incident, it sounds like his wife blatantly ran a light according to the laws of Oregon and he attempted to get it thrown out using a dubious technical argument.

http://www.oregonlive.com/commuting/index.ssf/2014/02/joseph...

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

#210

Post by thomastjeffery »

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…

> because it would be too complicated for cops to enforce.

The only reason speed limits get so much focus is that they are so easy to enforce.

Because of that, they have essentially become a direct-to-police tax, rather than something useful.

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