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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

#291

Post by notlob »

thomastjeffery wrote: post #282
notlob wrote: post #273

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This misses my point. My point is that while I am a "doctor" I am not a physician, and that even though I use the title in other places it's prudent to be very careful about it in a medical setting because it could be misconstrued. Perhaps it would be prudent to demonstrate similar care when addressing the government organization that cares very much about licensing engineers while one is using the industrial exempti…

> Perhaps it would be prudent to demonstrate similar care when addressing the government organization that cares very much about licensing engineers. I disagree. In this scenario, the state has redefined the meaning of "engineer" in a way that is very detrimental. A Medical Doctor or physician implies with his or her title, authority to practice. The word "engineer" does not carry this implication, nor should it. Whe…

> In this scenario, the state has redefined the meaning of "engineer" in a way that is very detrimental.

This is backwards from my perspective. Engineering has long been a licensed profession. It is only recently that a group of people have chosen, for some reason beyond me, to call themselves "software engineers" and avail themselves of the industrial exemption. I'm not a fan but the ship has sailed on that one.

> A Medical Doctor or physician implies with his or her title, authority to practice.

There are many MDs and DOs that are not licensed by their state boards and they too have to take care with misrepresenting themselves as physicians licensed to practice. The same is true of people using the industrial exemption to practice engineering, one cannot use the industrial exemption to practice before the public.

TL;DR from my perspective (PhD in engineering but not an engineer) there is a newer group people who are attempting to redefine what "engineer" means as a profession, and that redefinition relaxes education, experience, and professional conduct standards by quite a bit. I realize that like the Browncoats of Firefly I am on the losing side, and also like the Browncoats I don't like it.

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

#292

Post by notlob »

thomastjeffery wrote: post #289
notlob wrote: post #281

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Electrical Engineer is also a licensed profession.

For good reasons. You don't want someone to wire your house improperly, because non-trivial things like kinked cables can end up starting fires later on. To say that you are an electrical engineer does not carry weight. To say you can do electrical work because you are an electrical engineer implies that you have credentials. This is because "can" changes the context of the statement. "can" implies authority. There i…

Electrical engineers do not wire houses. Electricians (a distinct profession, also licensed) wire houses. Similar to how chemical engineers are distinct from plumbers.

I'm done here, this is not going anywhere productive or enlightening.

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

#293

Post by rconti »

czep wrote: post #277
rconti wrote: post #222

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Occasionally people need to change lanes, which is impossible when every lane is packed with cars going nowhere. Driving slow as shit and obliviously or passive-aggressively blocking traffic impedes traffic flow, causes tailgating, incites road rage, and does nothing pleasant whatsoever.

Parent said all lanes driving "usually right at the speed limit". How do you interpret that as "Driving slow as shit"?

Tautology. Much of Oregon is 55 and sometimes even 50mph speed limits on the Interstate HIGHWAYS.

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

#294

Post by russh »

asteli wrote: post #202
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…

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...

I wonder how much this would decrease the wait times for donated organs?

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

#295

Post by buxtehude »

czep wrote: post #275
buxtehude wrote: post #199

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm not sure if you're just trolling here, but will address some issues. The assumption that a set maximum speed is the safest for all drivers is erroneous. There are many factors at play and a proper safe speed depends in part on the driver, the driving conditions, and the car they are driving (and much more). Unless you are in very heavy traffic, forcing people to go slow or worse to pass you on the right is causin…

I am most certainly not trolling, I was merely pointing out that the parent's characterization that "its maddening that all 3 lanes seem to travel within 3-5 mph of each other, usually right at the speed limit" sounds to me a lot better than 3 lanes with large speed differentials between them. I don't understand the desire for people to want to exceed the speed limit, even if as you maintain, they are capable drivers…

Please do not misquote me to make your point. The full quote reads:

> Unless you are in very heavy traffic, forcing people to go slow or worse to pass you on the right is causing a much larger safety issue

If traffic is heavy in all lanes, I think most people would agree you just need to relax and go with the flow on a highway. That applies just as much here as it does on the Autobahn in Germany.

However, if traffic is not heavy - Oregon like California is a "keep right" state - so if you are in the left lane and someone is coming up behind you, you need to yield - regardless of the speed limit.

It's not just the law, it's also the safer thing to do.

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

#296

Post by bob_theslob646 »

rayiner wrote: post #182
bob_theslob646 wrote: post #158

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Maybe not in the legal field, but the counter example is online advertising (ppc). The better question is why are there not more judges? Everything is also bound by time.Unfortunately in the legal system there is just no incentive to go fast.

Ad agencies generally use a variety of fee structures: https://yourbusiness.azcentral.com/advertising-agency-fee-st... . If you step back one level of abstraction, I'm not sure pay-per-click nets advertises more ad revenue than other billing models would, it's just an easy way to calculate things. And in the legal field, fixed fee or hybrid fee structures are very common. In practice, those options aren't cheaper tha…

I checked out the link you shared. That was an extremely in-depth read. I will have to get back to you on the judgeships, because I do not really comprehend it that well after my first read.

I wanted to ask you about this and why it is not more known to the common person >In addition to the problem of unpublished opinions sketched above, another scandal plagues the administration of justice litigants in America face today – the problem of administrative law judges (ALJs).

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

#297

Post by valuearb »

slantyyz wrote: post #290
valuearb wrote: post #226

Earlier quoted context omitted.

He's officially an engineer. A jurisdiction can't change that. Words can't be protected by law. It's called freedom of speech.

Words are protected by the law all the time, especially as it relates to copyright/trademarks, commerce, certain professions and consumer protection.

Name one thing an individual citizen can't utter because it's protected by "copyright/trademarks, commerce, professions or consumer protection".

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

#298

Post by czep »

buxtehude wrote: post #295
czep wrote: post #275

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I am most certainly not trolling, I was merely pointing out that the parent's characterization that "its maddening that all 3 lanes seem to travel within 3-5 mph of each other, usually right at the speed limit" sounds to me a lot better than 3 lanes with large speed differentials between them. I don't understand the desire for people to want to exceed the speed limit, even if as you maintain, they are capable drivers…

Please do not misquote me to make your point. The full quote reads: > Unless you are in very heavy traffic, forcing people to go slow or worse to pass you on the right is causing a much larger safety issue If traffic is heavy in all lanes, I think most people would agree you just need to relax and go with the flow on a highway. That applies just as much here as it does on the Autobahn in Germany. However, if traffic…

I think we are in agreement here. The scenario I was envisioning assumed heavy traffic. I completely agree that failure to keep right is as dangerous and unlawful as excessive speeding.

I would definitely be in support of higher posted speed limits if, as in Germany, it also came with stricter driver training. Sadly I don't see that happening in the US.

Still I don't think it was fair to call me a troll.

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

#299

Post by DoubleGlazing »

pwg wrote: post #167
DoubleGlazing wrote: post #93

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 uni…

The prosecuting Garda Sargeant could not provide a calibration certificate for the speed detector, but the judge still didn't care. It was just a production line

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

#300

Post by [deleted] »

dragonwriter wrote: post #240
gamblor956 wrote: post #117

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The ticket was cited using PACING and the officer did not have a recently calibrated odometer which gave us an upperhand but that would not be enough to dismiss the case. For future reference, that would have been enough to get the ticket dismissed. Tickets must be based on calibrated range speedometers, not the officer's odometer. Also, the DA generally doesn't negotiate traffic tickets. It's not worth their time. S…

> Simply contest the ticket, since the worst case scenario is you get the same punishment you would have gotten if you hadn't fought the ticket. Wrong; actual penalties for traffic offenses can be greater (both in monetary value and may add license suspension) than the fine assigned with a ticket (which is a mixture of bail applied for certain modes of contest and a plea bargain offer if you choose to plead guilty.)…

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