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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

#211

Post by dragonwriter »

phil21 wrote: post #206
czep wrote: post #184

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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 al…

> If you are not actively passing a vehicle, you have zero reason to be in the left lane.

Well, aside from left lane exits, upcoming forks, and that the left lane is where special limited-use lanes tends to be, and, most critically...

> This assumes something resembling fairly open road

If someone has bothered to build a multiplane highway in the US, it tends to only rarely be so underutilized as to resemble fairly open road. Even if it's not “stop and go”, much of the time it is continuous traffic at some speed in all lanes, not sparse traffic in the right lane (or even the lane just to the right of the leftmost) and no significant traffic in the lane to the left allowing one to use the right for all regular travel and only move left to pass and then return to the right.

And the induced traffic effect means that adding additional capacity doesn't actually change this meaningfully.

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

#212

Post by drewmol »

mikestew wrote: post #196
drewmol wrote: post #188

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I often see people refuse to move from far right lane and refuse to adjust their speed to accommodate drivers merging onto a 3+ lane highway/freeway. I don't know the laws on this one but it seems like a similar level of asshole behavior as staying in the passing lane despite an open lane to the right and faster cars behind. You may have the right of way but an action that's usually very simple for you can alleviate…

I often see people refuse to move from far right lane and refuse to adjust their speed to accommodate drivers merging onto a 3+ lane highway/freeway. In Seattle, often times you can't move out of the lane, traffic's too thick. Which is why the person in the right lane needs to make accomodations to those merging, and the person merging needs to do their part by accelerating to speed of traffic. It's a cooperation, an…

In the states I've lived they have no obligation, but it's incredibly helpful to keeping traffic flowing. Often a +/- 5MPH adjustment can help a whole lot. I know it's not mandatory, but if you are aware of a merging vehicle I don't think it's unreasonable to expect someone to be bothered to make a minor adjust to ease the process, and often/most times they don't. That's all I was getting at.

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

#213

Post by vvanders »

drewmol wrote: post #188
mikestew wrote: post #171

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not obligated, no, but certainly the polite thing to do. Problem is in Seattle, what was a polite thing to do is now considered an obligation. “No matter how slow I’m going, you have to let me in” has been local culture for the seventeen years I’ve lived here, wrong as it might be. Which means when they’re creeping down the exit ramp, if they end up beside you they won’t even look when they move over. No, I am not ex…

I often see people refuse to move from far right lane and refuse to adjust their speed to accommodate drivers merging onto a 3+ lane highway/freeway. I don't know the laws on this one but it seems like a similar level of asshole behavior as staying in the passing lane despite an open lane to the right and faster cars behind. You may have the right of way but an action that's usually very simple for you can alleviate…

Nope, they're under no right to let you in, merging traffic yields.

Consider if you were driving a 80klb GVWR semi. If the law required you to yield that could make for an incredibly dangerous situation.

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

#214

Post by ajmurmann »

czep wrote: post #186
briffle wrote: post #162

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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..

Maddening? That sounds perfectly peaceful to me! It sounds like everyone just wants to get where they're going, safely. Why do you feel so driven (!) to go so fast? Given the choice between what you describe---an orderly set of traffic at near the speed limit---or a free-for-all in which inevitably an aggressive lane-changer clips someone at 85mph spreading blood and metal all over the highway and stopping traffic fo…

Funny enough the correlation between speed and traffic fatalities doesn't seem to matter that much. Speed limits on the German Autobahn are famously much higher but there are fewer fatalities per mile traveled. I'm inclined to believe that the reason is that traffic there and in northern Europe in general is in fact much more orderly then traffic in the US. No overtaking on the right ever. Cars only move into the left lane to overtake somebody. That requires a lot more lane changes, but they are very predictable lane changes and the is so much less to watch it for. People also accelerate properly before entering the Autobahn. So your speed delta to cars in the land you are trying to merge into is usually quite low.

It also takes many hours of driving with a trained driving instructor and a full hour practical test plus a genuinely hard theoretical test to get a license.

Edit: I grew up in Germany and when I moved to southern California traffic terrified me. It was much slower than traffic on the Autobahn but the chaos was just terrifying. Oregon traffic is super slow but still pure chaos compared to what I've experienced anywhere in Europe.

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

#215

Post by thomastjeffery »

simook wrote: post #80
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…

Going faster does not improve the speed of traffic. Matter of fact if everyone drove the actual speed limit we wouldn't have such a bad trafffic problem. Our infranstructure was designed to handle a range of speeds, primarily for the timing systems. When people drive outside those limits, that's when traffic patterns become unpredictable and/or unmanageable. The slow drivers are no different than the fast drivers. Bo…

You can't expect people to go the same, or similar speeds.

There will always be trucks going slower, and always people who feel comfortable at much higher speeds.

Going different speeds is what multiple lanes are for.

The problem is that multiple lanes lose their value when two cars are driving side-by-side at the same speed. If the left car speeds up for a short period, then moves to the right, traffic will be able to circulate, creating more distance between cars, and fewer instances of significant speed difference in a close range over a period of time.

The problem is that speed itself is quantifiable, so police focus on it way more than is helpful. To legitimize speed tickets, there have been years of propaganda teaching people that slower = better, so those who want to drive slow feel vindicated, and those who understand traffic flow are frustrated.

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

#216

Post by valuearb »

takk309 wrote: post #113

I have been following this story for quite some time and I would like to point a major item that this article misled the reader about. First off, the State Board did not censor what he was saying, they asked him to stop representing himself as an engineer. Järlström initially sent his analysis to the State Board with a letter in-which he referred to himself as an engineer. The Board Responded by requesting that he re…

Stop trying to use your "registered professional traffic engineer" title as a labor monopoly. It doesn't even mean you are good at your job.

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

#217

Post by notheguyouthink »

CalChris wrote: post #150
notheguyouthink wrote: post #90

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Agreed completely. Furthermore, imo the worst are slow mergers and lane weavers. On both counts they're entering lanes of traffic at wildly different speeds, which not only creates more traffic but puts everyone at risk. I don't mind speeding in the left lane if they're at a reasonable speed above their immediate right lane. If they're going 30 over what the one-right lane is going it's quite hazardous. Yet so many p…

The trouble is that the left lane doubles as the diamond lane at rush hour.

Very regional, fwiw. I don't have those in my commutes, for example.

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

#218

Post by valuearb »

romdev wrote: post #205

From experience, Oregon law for yellow lights says you must stop if it's safe to do so. The duration of the yellow light is not relevant to your argument if you get a ticket.

You are just helping confirm the fact that Oregon is the land of dumb laws.

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

#219

Post by rconti »

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.

Growing up in the Seattle area, I always joked that drivers in WA were slow and passive, and OR drivers were slow but aggressive. (and CA was fast and aggressive; OR just happened to be the worst of both worlds).

It's just so insanely bad whenever I go back up there to visit. You'll spend 10 minutes going 59mph in the left of 5 lanes and never be able to change lanes, make an exit, make it past the person in front of you.

And to add insult to injury, the WSP sits there with laser speed traps every 10 miles just in case you dare go 61mph.

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

#220

Post by valuearb »

revelation wrote: post #95
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.

You run red lights and think it's a "money grab"? And are happy about non-enforcement? I believe you lack the maturity to operate multi-ton vehicles on public streets.

Getting a ticket for running a red light when you entered an intersection in a yellow light is the money grab.
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