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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

#121

Post by gamblor956 »

bigchewy wrote: post #57
vermontdevil wrote: post #38

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Umm no. Not all lawyers. They do take time because they want to win. And sometimes they have to be sure as some cases can be complicated.

Ummm unless lawyers somehow have evolved different brains than the rest of us, they, too, prefer to make more money vs less. So if they are billing hourly, then yes they all do want to spend more time. Now, they might fight against that urge (E.g. believing that spending less time on Client A will improve their reputation and lead to more clients) but your statement is naive re how incentives work

Lawyers in criminal cases generally work on a fixed fee basis, so working needless hours on one client means less work they can do on other clients. Celebrity lawyers charge hourly, but that is because their clients are so much more demanding that they generally only work on a single client's case at a time.

Lawyers in tort cases bill on a contingency basis, so working more does not change their payout--success is all that matters.

Lawyers in transactional cases usually bill hourly, because when you're talking about multi-million or multi-billion dollar transactions, the few thousand you spend on the lawyers and accountants is a rounding error compared to what you spend on the airfare for the executives negotiating the deal.

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

#122

Post by revelation »

mulmen wrote: post #115
revelation wrote: post #95

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Driving is a privilege, not a right. What proof are you looking for?

And this is a thread about red light cameras. Is this confusing to you? What's the difference in "money grabbiness" between red light cameras and speed cameras? Is someone who disregards the one but not the other qualified to drive?

And you seem to have missed it, but this article and the "engineer" isn't even claiming the devices are wrongfully ticketing.

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

#123

Post by mindslight »

larrydag wrote: post #70
jostmey wrote: post #69

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So what? I don't want to live in a society governed by titles. Real talent doesn't need to rely on titles. I have titles but so what?

I wasn't speaking of titles. I was speaking of submitting technical work on engineering related ideas. Typically this is highly regulated under U.S. state laws.

The generally-good requirement that plans are stamped by a "Professional Engineer" is required by public AHJs/codes and private regulations (eg insurance), and is not under dispute here. Meanwhile much engineering work is not under this regime, but checked by market demand and testing (eg software/electronic).

As an Electrical Engineer that has little interest in power systems and isn't looking to rewire other people's houses for money, I have very little use for a PE. I still have the basic right, along with everyone else (regardless of education), to make technical judgments of any situation. How these judgments are valued can (and should) be questioned, but our right to speak them cannot.

These laws you speak of are a mix of unenforced, unenforceable, unconstitutional, and unconscionable. Their actual effects are constrained between nothing (ie most people accept the concept of free speech) and the harmful thuggish behavior described in the article.

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

#124

Post by lucb1e »

> a $500 fine for “unlicensed practice of engineering.”

Looking this up[1], this is phrased terribly. It's claiming some title or degree that you don't have, that's illegal. Not "practicing engineering" (which sounds to me like: you measured something and proposed an improvement, which you have to do a study for to be allowed to measure and suggest to improve it).

That "state-issued license to practice engineering" is just your degree which allows you to wear a title.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Regulation_and_licensure_in_en...

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

#125

Post by Kuiper »

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…

>he is not allowed to call himself an engineer in such a was as to imply that he is a traffic or transportation engineer.

He never claimed to be a traffic or transportation engineer, in fact the fine cited him for use of the phrase "electronics engineer." He is an EE: He has an electrical engineering degree from his home country (Sweden) and he has worked as an electrical engineer for decades.

>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.

"PE" (professional engineer) does have a legal distinction in the jurisdiction of Oregon, but he never claimed to be a registered PE in the state of Oregon. "Engineer" is not a legal distinction. He never made any false declarations about his credentials.

>the State Board did not censor what he was saying, they asked him to stop representing himself as an engineer.

They "asked him" by issuing a $500 fine in response to his letter for committing the apparent crime of sending a letter in which he (factually) stated that he is an engineer. Telling citizens "you are not allowed to write a letter to the government in which you use the word 'engineer' (a term with no legal distinctions) when describing yourself" sounds like censorship to me.

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

#126

Post by dawnerd »

dsfyu404ed wrote: post #100
manyxcxi wrote: post #75

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

>hell left lane campers. It's 2017. We have cameras, "repeated failure to move right for faster traffic" should not be a hard ticket to write to a high standard of proof.

It kinda turns into the problem (if you want to call it that) in California where you must keep up with traffic but you also must not go over posted speed limits. Basically putting you always in violation of a law if they really wanted to get you.

My biggest gripe about drivers in Oregon is the people that zip in and out of lanes at high speeds without signaling and the amount of people in city traffic that simply don’t look where they’re going.

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

#127

Post by takk309 »

coding123 wrote: post #116
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".

As long as you are clearly stating that you are a software engineer and not purporting to have expertise in traffic engineering, I agree with you.

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

#128

Post by criddell »

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…

> 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.

It feels like in this case they were using registration (or lack thereof) to protect revenue and as a consequence they didn't protect people. I think the people that directed the case should be held accountable and perhaps the board should review their behavior.

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

#129

Post by slededit »

dawnerd wrote: post #126
dsfyu404ed wrote: post #100

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>hell left lane campers. It's 2017. We have cameras, "repeated failure to move right for faster traffic" should not be a hard ticket to write to a high standard of proof.

It kinda turns into the problem (if you want to call it that) in California where you must keep up with traffic but you also must not go over posted speed limits. Basically putting you always in violation of a law if they really wanted to get you. My biggest gripe about drivers in Oregon is the people that zip in and out of lanes at high speeds without signaling and the amount of people in city traffic that simply do…

Just stay in the right lane if everyone else is speeding and you don't want to. Oregon has minimum speed limits too though.

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

#130

Post by albedoa »

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…

A lot of this is covered in the discussion you allude to (where you have the top comment): https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14197512

Kiuper's sibling comment in this thread sums it up nicely as far as I can tell.

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