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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

#251

Post by takk309 »

valuearb wrote: post #216
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.

It is not meant to create a labor monopoly any more than a medical doctors licence. Registration as an engineer is so that one can prove that they have the requisite knowledge and competency to perform the work required of them. Without registration, what legal assurances would you have that the engineer is capable of his job?

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

#252

Post by aeorgnoieang »

pm90 wrote: post #180
jbob2000 wrote: post #138

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Does it matter if his points are valid? I don't need to be a chef to know when the meat is spoiled.

It matters specifically in the case of making legal arguments. I'm not saying the board was right, but please see it from their perspective. A certified traffic engineer would also use the term "engineer" in his findings. The latter's analysis would be given much more weight, be trusted more, simply because that's what certification is meant for . We've created titles and institutions for a purpose, so that Average J…

I don't think anyone is disputing the law beyond claiming that it's stupid.

And, in this case, the board members were all certified traffic engineers and were reviewing this other person's offered analysis (or, rather, deciding to go after the person for their affront in even offering the analysis at all without having a certification). As others have pointed out, Oregon is very selectively enforcing the law. It's pretty hard not to conclude that some asshole decided to go after someone for pointing out problems with work for which they were somewhat responsible.

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

#253

Post by mywittyname »

drewmol wrote: post #185
wandernotlost wrote: post #154

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

I'm seeing some interesting POV's on thread (and some road rage issues) but I'm genuinely curious: if the speed limit plays no part in the equation... Let's say I'm traveling ~85 in the left most lane while passing cars in the center lane traveling ~60(posted max speed). Car behind me approaches going 200. Should I be expected to slow down to 60 and force a merge to center lane in order to yeild to the girl going 200…

You should move into the center lane when it is clear to do so and continue in that lane until the need arises to pass someone.

I don't understand why people want to pick fights with other people while driving. A person traveling way too fast is clearly does care about acting dangerously, why the hell would you want to aggravate that person? The best outcome is nothing happens, the worst outcome is your death.

Plus, if you're blocking these people, you're also preventing them from getting a speeding ticket.

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

#254

Post by Johnny555 »

valuearb wrote: post #229
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…

People with professional engineering titles are the dregs of the engineering profession, they couldn't get work without certification. So they got it and parade it around like self important dweebs, so that people hopefully won't realize how poorly qualified they actually are.

You are painting a lot of people with a broad brush. I know a number of PE's, (electrical and structural) and they are, as the title says, Professional. They engineer 100 million dollar projects, the aren't just someone pretending to know what they are doing.

You're right that "they couldn't get work without certification" but that's because such certification is required for the work they do, it's not some way for them to get work that they are not qualified to do.

Do you have a better system of vetting that the engineer that's designing the building you work in is competent?

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

#255

Post by aeorgnoieang »

thomastjeffery wrote: post #236
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.

The other problem is that they invade privacy. Having a camera constantly recording in a public area is not something that I find reasonable. Cameras do not announce their presence. Cameras do not get tired, or leave. Cameras made for law enforcement assume guilt.

I'm torn about this. Surveillance by people is expensive, grueling, and hard to hide. If I imagine police wanting to replace a team of people surveilling some person or people or place with a camera, I don't notice any outrage.

It's more the ubiquity of surveillance that seems unreasonable, but, like a lot of things, there's no clear dividing line between what should be allowed and what should be prohibited. And it's even more complicated by the ability of, e.g. police, to pool multiple cameras owned by private individuals or groups.

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

#256

Post by chrisdbaldwin »

jgh wrote: post #87
program_whiz wrote: post #55

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 t…

> 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 OTOH a perfectly libertarian system is ripe for the exploitation of fallible humans. Anyway there's a case for moderation here. I don't think shrinking the government to some ineffectual, m…

I think it's about time we stop throwing the baby out with the bath water when libertarian ideology comes up.

Looking at it simply, is there a possible set of rules that reduces waste, increases efficiency of constrained resources, and reduce exploitation from within the system? Libertarian ideologues suggest that there exists such a set of such rules, and it's a dramatically smaller set than we currently have. In order to move towards that smaller ideal set, we need a ideological shift in America -- we need to admit we suck. We suck at things, and some things that we think are okay now will suck soon. American culture sells the opposite: you're great, and it's poisonous. We need to acknowledge when others are doing better than us. I think we currently suck at it because the system is working as intended: corruption for sale. I don't think that's a sustainable system for the American people. It's about time we upgraded our "infrastructure."

We need to realign our government, giving it back to those that they are supposed to be serving in the first place: the citizens. Let's start by acknowledging that Libertarians are trying to free us from that which the government has no business being involved, thus reducing waste, increasing the efficiency of constraints, and reducing opportunity for exploitation. It is not about trying to create loop holes for exploitation. It's about shifting the meta away from corruption.

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

#257

Post by oldandtired »

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.

The left hand lane is the natural place for slow drivers. just because you Americans (of the USA kind) live in a mirror image world, doesn't mean that the natural order of things shouldn't be obeyed.

Left hand lane is for slow drivers, Right hand lane is those going faster. When many of you lot come to my country, you suddenly get a light on and realise that your road rules are those of a drongo and you appreciate that you are now driving in a sane world.

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

#258

Post by Johnny555 »

cname wrote: post #209
mirceal wrote: post #114

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 attem…

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

If laws are passed based only on the claims of any person (regardless of his engineering certifications) and without any independent validation that's not the fault of the person making the claim.

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

#259

Post by 0x445442 »

leesalminen wrote: post #54
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.

That happened to us once I think but it was not law enforcement. They tried to have someone serve us in the evening. We just didn't answer the door

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

#260

Post by CalChris »

thomastjeffery wrote: post #246
takk309 wrote: post #241

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I very much disagree with you. While traffic engineering failures may not be as acute as a medical doctor, the effects can be much more expensive and far reaching. For example, let us say that a road has a design speed of 55 mph. That would dictate the maximum curvature of the horizontal alignment. If an engineer chooses to ignore this design speed and makes the corner too tight, there will likely be a crash cluster…

> Another more extreme, yet more common, example is structural engineering. We aren't even talking about structural engineering here. We are talking about an electrical engineer submitting comments regarding traffic. The only reason these are related is the word "engineer", which is ambiguous. The contents of this man's letter are not physically acting upon traffic. They were submitted to be considered by a group of…

> It's about a traffic light camera, which an electrical engineer would be able to understand significantly better than a layman

I would go further and say that as a EE working in the field he would understand this issue better than a traffic engineer would.

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