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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

#111

Post by jenny_say_qua »

notheguyouthink wrote: post #91
vvanders wrote: post #88

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Going faster does not improve the speed of traffic. The parent never said that. When you merge on onto the freeway to need to merge at the fucking speed of traffic . I've been in so many cases stuck behind a clueless oregon driver merging onto I-5(70mph) at 35-40mph while there's a fucking semi bearing down on us 1/4-1/8th of a mile away. It's goddamn dangerous and putting people in situations where someone is goin…

edit : Apparently wanting to see data is offensive to drivers on HN. /shrug

https://www.motorists.org/blog/speed-limits-slower-safer/ this has some good data. Going too fast or too slow are both dangerous. When merging on the highway, you should be at the speed of traffic to minimize risk.

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

#112

Post by mikestew »

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 Oregon I was always annoyed by the slow as hell left lane campers

Now imagine that you grew up somewhere where only senile old ladies park in the left lane (preferably with left blinker on). “Blood boiling seething rage” is about right when I moved to Seattle. I’ve since become at peace with shitty driving, else I was going to have an aneurism.

That “push” you refer to to get folks out of the left lane? From my POV they made a bunch of noise on TV, but haven’t done shit. The left lane sure isn’t any better than it ever was. Nope, made some noise for a week, back to business as usual.

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

#113

Post by takk309 »

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 refrain from calling himself an engineer. After Järlström continued to call himself an engineer, the Board decided to fine him.

Järlström is and was allowed to discuss his analysis all he wanted, however, he is not allowed to call himself an engineer in such a was as to imply that he is a traffic or transportation engineer.

Full disclosure, I am a registered professional traffic engineer. As such, I feel that registration is very important and serves to protect the public at large from people producing work with little to no relevant experience.

Here is an article that was previously posted on HN which includes many of the documents involved in this case. https://motherboard.vice.com/en_us/article/vvapy4/man-fined-...

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

#114

Post by mirceal »

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 want to challenge the timing of the yellow light sure go ahead. If this guy who has worked in another country as an engineer does this... whoooaaaa... put the brakes on.

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

#115

Post by mulmen »

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.

1) GP admitted no wrongdoing, accusation is not proof.

2) Traffic cameras are used to issue more than just red light tickets, speed cameras being another example.

3) TFA is about flaws in those devices that can lead to incorrect accusations on the part of the state employing them.

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

#116

Post by coding123 »

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…

I am an engineer. I am not a "registered professional traffic engineer". I am a software engineer. If I wrote a paper on traffic signaling (which is also huge in software) I should be able to call myself an engineer - yes I won't call myself a "registered professional traffic engineer".

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

#117

Post by gamblor956 »

subhobroto wrote: post #105
uniformlyrandom wrote: post #65

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> most native Oregonians would be fine constantly because they drive insanely slow And this is why they do not want you to drive slow. The difference of speed between cars is what causes accidents. This is why speed limits are raised based on 90th percentile speeds. And this is why everyone in California drives 80 in 65, and CHP are apparently OK with that.

> why everyone in California drives 80 in 65, and CHP are apparently OK with that. Absolutely untrue. My wife was ticketed by the CHP for driving at 80 on an empty I5 early in the morning. There was no traffic and she was the only other car on that stretch of the I5 at that time. We seriously considered figting the ticket but I was unable to collect any data to prove that 90 percentile of the traffic drives at 80 alt…

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. 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.

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

#118

Post by mulmen »

tialaramex wrote: post #33
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?

The yellow light provides a period when drivers know the light is going to go red soon, all else being equal this light should be set to stay on for just long enough for drivers in properly maintained cars, who drive at legal speeds, to see it and all either come to a stop or pass the intersection before the light turns red. Typically formulas care about the allowed speed of cars, the expected braking capability of a…

In the age of big data optimizing for the right value will be our greatest challenge.

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

#119

Post by mikestew »

vvanders wrote: post #88
simook wrote: post #80

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

> Going faster does not improve the speed of traffic. The parent never said that. When you merge on onto the freeway to need to merge at the fucking speed of traffic . I've been in so many cases stuck behind a clueless oregon driver merging onto I-5(70mph) at 35-40mph while there's a fucking semi bearing down on us 1/4-1/8th of a mile away. It's goddamn dangerous and putting people in situations where someone is goin…

This behavior makes me a selfish driver, too. Doing 20 under what I’m doing when you hit the end of the ramp? Well, I’m sure as hell not letting you in front of me. If you can’t be bothered to do it right, I can’t be bothered, either.

Which doesn’t help traffic one iota.

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

#120

Post by oh_sigh »

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.

Not exactly true - in CO you can get a speed trap van to mail you a ticket from Arizona - they can't add points to your record but they can take you to court if you don't pay.
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