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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

#301

Post by buxtehude »

czep wrote: post #298
buxtehude wrote: post #295

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

ok thank you for the clarification

I think it's clear now you weren't "trolling". Your original response seemed to me so against the tide here that I thought you might be intentionally antagonizing. My apologies.

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

#302

Post by throwawayjava »

logfromblammo wrote: post #191
overhang wrote: post #166

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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 max…

> proper following distances, all traveling 70mph Hi. Welcome to Earth. It looks like you missed orientation. Humans drive at different speeds, and usually follow too closely. We have recognized this species-wide problem, and are currently trying to build driving robots that will reduce the impact. Until they are ready, every collision you may see on the road was likely caused by a human driving non-optimally. Theref…

"Proper following distances" absolutely does not mean "with less than 1 second of separation between them"!

"Proper following distances" means "you can react and stop in time to prevent a collision if the car in front of you brakes very hard".

Ripped from a wiki article on the topic:

"

The United States National Safety Council suggests that a three-second rule—with increases of one second per factor of driving difficulty—is more appropriate. Factors that make driving more difficult include poor lighting conditions (dawn and dusk are the most common); inclement weather (ice, rain, snow, fog, etc.), adverse traffic mix (heavy vehicles, slow vehicles, impaired drivers, pedestrians, bicyclists, etc.), and personal condition (fatigue, sleepiness, drug-related loss of response time, distracting thoughts, etc.). For example, a fatigued driver piloting a car in rainy weather at dusk would do well to observe a six-second following distance, rather than the basic three-second gap."

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

#303

Post by someguydave »

mindslight wrote: post #177
someguydave wrote: post #156

Earlier quoted context omitted.

These laws you speak of are a mix of unenforced, unenforceable, unconstitutional, and unconscionable. Would you say the same thing about doctor licensing laws?

Yes, if those laws were able/used to silence PhDs using the title Doctor and/or nurses giving informal friendly diagnoses. The proper test is fraud , not trademark or unauthorized subject matter .

Are you using your own common sense for determining the boundaries of legal doctoring or are you using your State's statues?

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

#304

Post by slantyyz »

valuearb wrote: post #297
slantyyz wrote: post #290

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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".

You're missing my original point, which is to say the guy can't legally call himself an engineer in Oregon, at least in a professional capacity, which would be related to a profession/consumer protection.

If you actually followed the thread, my point was a response to a response about changing the title to not call the person an engineer in the headline.

It had nothing to do with him being sanctioned for expressing his opinions about the red light cameras, which itself is a free speech issue.

If words are used to misrepresent, incite, defraud or defame, there can be legal consequences. If you had a slab of horse meat you were selling and someone asked you what it was, and you said only the word "beef", do you think there would be no legal recourse of action against you if the buyer found out it wasn't true?

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

#305

Post by slantyyz »

thomastjeffery wrote: post #271
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…

> how do you prove his credentials? You don't. "Engineer" is not broadly considered a claim of authority . It is a claim of knowledge . If I am required to provide credentials whenever I say "engineer", then how, as someone without credentials, am I supposed to express my background? I'll simply choose another word, which will have the exact meaning that "engineer" currently does. Why? Because you redefined the word.…

>> "Engineer" is not broadly considered a claim of authority. It is a claim of knowledge.

Can you explain what you mean by that?

The reason why I ask is this - before the process was simplified in Canada, you were required to have your passport application signed by an accredited professional guarantor like a medical doctor, accountant, police officer, engineer (PEng), etc who had known you for a minimum period of time.

So in this specific context, an engineer is a special class of person in society (because of the professional body he/she is a member of).

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

#307

Post by dbdr »

romwell wrote: post #279
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…

The idea won't work. In TX, all highways have clear signs saying "LEFT LANE FOR PASSING ONLY", and guess how many people notice them? I've also known people who think it's OK to be in the left lane if they're going the speed limit. Do you think these people will be educated by waving a sign in front of them from a motorcycle? They'll just get angry.

> I've also known people who think it's OK to be in the left lane if they're going the speed limit.

I would think it's OK if there is traffic in the other lanes too (otherwise you should go back to the lanes on the right).

But why does it bother you? Do you think it's OK to go above the speed limit? Just curious.

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

#308

Post by Too »

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…

This isn't just a thought experiment. This is genuinely what driving on Autobahn is like. You might think you are overtaking fast in 150kmph but then theres an even crazier guy coming in 200 behind flashing you for going too slow.

Both alternatives are equally common, either you slow down to 60 and let the 200 car pass, or you stay in the overtaking (maybe speed up a bit of of courtesy) and let the 200 guy slow down. In my experience the faster usually has higher priority unless the traffic is very heavy, because by going faster they also disappear faster and don't hog the left lane for as long as someone overtaking at a slower speed.

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

#309

Post by valuearb »

slantyyz wrote: post #304
valuearb wrote: post #297

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

You're missing my original point, which is to say the guy can't legally call himself an engineer in Oregon, at least in a professional capacity, which would be related to a profession/consumer protection. If you actually followed the thread, my point was a response to a response about changing the title to not call the person an engineer in the headline. It had nothing to do with him being sanctioned for expressing h…

If the guild of professional Kobe beef ranchers were given government authority to fine anyone who referred to non-kobe cow meat as “beef”, would it be right?

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

#310

Post by jhayward »

walshemj wrote: post #89
patcheudor wrote: post #59

Earlier quoted context omitted.

These are very popular laws in the US with every state having some level of certification requirement for certain professions. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Regulation_and_licensure_in_en...

Including FFS Estate Agents (Relators)

> Including FFS Estate Agents (Relators)

Yes, because before regulation buying and selling real estate was rife with scams, ripoffs, blatantly false advertising, and misapropriation.

These regulations don't come out of nowhere. I know that there is some residual teenage rebellion against rules, and there is without a doubt some downside and friction associated with imperfect regulation and enforcement. The alternative, though, is not better than the present.

We really do not want to live in the completely unregulated society that many tech-lad libertarians think would be Nirvana. It would be, instead, the hell we got rid of.

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