231–240 of 325 posts
I can see how the State of Oregon would be annoyed that an unlicensed environmental engineer would be touting his engineering credentials when arguing with licensed civil engineers, especially since the State of Oregon licenses engineers. Engineering is a field where if you mess up, people may die, so just as we license doctors, we license engineers.
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The right lane is for people driving below the maximum speed limit. The second lane from the right is for people driving faster than people in the right lane. The left lane is for people driving the maximum speed limit. People weaving in and out of the left lane so they can pass people who are driving at the maximum allowed speed are a problem. Because instrumentation is imperfect, two drivers who believe they are dr…
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…
You must live somewhere there aren't left exits.
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If Järlström had actually referred to himself as a traffic engineer then both the state and you would have a point. But he didn't. He said he had an engineering degree which he has and he stated that he was doing work related to the problem which he was. Järlström did not misrepresent himself.
Titles can be contextual. I do not refer to myself (a PhD) as a doctor in a hospital because others could incorrectly think I was a physician. This problem is especially vexing for nurses with PhDs.
An Engineer designs functional things.
No reasonable person is going to think that him calling himself an "Electrical Engineer", which he is, construes that he had specific training in designing traffic infrastructure that doesn't accidentally harm people.
Traffic infrastructure is not a nuanced topic full of dangerous pitfalls.
He was claiming that he had a background in engineering that is applicable to the subject, so that his viewpoint would not be cast aside. The state wanted to ignore his viewpoint, so they fined him.
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.
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Or you can just flash your high beams, pass on the right lane, etc.
> pass on the right lane Unless there is someone in that lane going the same speed, or slightly slower, which is very common in a two-lane road near where I live. There are also people who drive rather dangerously out of frustration when they cannot pass, making the entire situation more dangerous. The problem is that the slow drivers have been taught that "driving slow = correct", and that everyone around them must…
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.
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.
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…
Having constantly vigilant eyes watching for anyone to do one exact thing wrong is totally unreasonable, because those eyes to not announce their presence, and the definition of "wrong" is not directly quantifiable.
Police focus too much on quantifiable things like speed, where there is a lot more nuance to the surrounding situation.
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> pass on the right lane Unless there is someone in that lane going the same speed, or slightly slower, which is very common in a two-lane road near where I live. There are also people who drive rather dangerously out of frustration when they cannot pass, making the entire situation more dangerous. The problem is that the slow drivers have been taught that "driving slow = correct", and that everyone around them must…
You have a naive understanding of human behavior. This would make the motorcyclist a target of rage by some subset of camping drivers. The camping driver may decide to intentionally inhibit traffic by pacing a large truck.
They do not feel like they should do something, like drive faster or slower to allow traffic to flow around them.
This causes much more dangerous traffic situations, because traffic gets bottled up, and there are always a few cars that want to go significantly faster, and aren't afraid to drive more dangerously out of frustration.
Those drivers who drive more dangerously are seen by the slow drivers in the front to be the real problem. The drivers in the front then feel more vindicated in their "correct" driving style.
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>Oregon was telling him not to SAY that he was an engineer in his correspondence with them and in media portrayals because it’s a licensed profession. according to Oregon's own gov website the licensed profession is "Professional Engineer". Seems like a similar difference between Registered Nurse and just a nurse. http://www.oregon.gov/osbeels/obtaining/Pages/default.aspx
> Seems like a similar difference between Registered Nurse and just a nurse. That is a distinction that was invented by the state. Calling yourself an "engineer" is unspecific, and is not a claim to authority, but to knowledge. To claim that it is suddenly a specific claim to authority is to redefine the term. When you redefine a common term, and punish someone for not knowing you did so, that is a real problem. In t…
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> 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. S…
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.)
Plus, whether or not the base fine is higher, you can also be assessed court costs.