Man who was fined $500 for criticizing traffic light timing gets his idea adopted by Institute of Transportation Engineers

[BobDobbs]

TFW marrying a neuroatypical finally pays off! Also, before someone flags this… this is more a “shout out” than a punch down, even if jokey.

[bolamig]

So the guy who fined this guy is getting fined for practicing law without a license right?

Anyway my research into red light cams showed that the vast majority of tickets are issued for right turns on red, not for blasting straight through an intersection. So this guy is obviously in the right. Even better would be for red light cams not to ticket right turns.

[L0ki]

@bobtato

But that’s not the whole picture. The job of civil engineers is to be thorough and systematic and think of all the details you don’t care about, and the system is presumably working fine on that front. Do we want them to drop what they’re doing whenever someone pops up on the news and says “I fixed radios as a teenager, and I say we should reprogram all traffic lights so my wife doesn’t get tickets any more”?

Plus, the engineering hegemony obviously does process new ideas – via the Institute mentioned in the OP – which presumably consists of qualified engineers who are paid to do that, as opposed to ones who are paid to make sure crossings in Bumwad, OR are wheelchair-accessible and other such boring socialist details.

Just so. The issue with the Oregon Board came about because he wrote to them complaining about the timing of the light and apparently “[indicating] that he was undertaking engineering work”. They (understandably) pointed out that they have no control over how Beaverton decides to set their traffic signals. They also pointed out (as is their role) that engineer is a protected term in Oregon and that he shouldn’t be calling himself one without being licensed.

They provided him with copies of the relevant legislation and he apparently agreed to comply with it.

He didn’t. He carried on sending emails to people stating that he was an engineer and that he had done engineering (by inventing a new formula for yellow change timing intervals).

He was sent a notice of intent to apply a fine. He could have but did not request a hearing. The Board accordingly went ahead to issue a fine. Whether requesting a hearing would have made any difference whatsoever is of course open to question but not taking the opportunity does rather undermine the argument about the inherent unfairness of the system.

jarlstrom_order.pdf

@Loudmouth

If this alleged renegade engineer had actually contracted with a municipality and prepared specifications and schematics to have the municipality implement this solution while representing himself as a traffic engineer without the professional license, then this act is within the jurisdiction of the board. But from what I have read, it seems he was simply sharing his insight and ideas in a collaborative, advisory capacity and not doing actual work. And that is all right by me.

So, let’s say I claim to be a medical doctor. I don’t work in a doctor’s surgery or for a hospital or anything but I do decide that I have some great insight into, say, the dangers of vaccines and I email a bunch of news outlets and medical bodies telling them that I am a doctor and I know vaccines are dangerous because of my medical knowledge.

I’m simply sharing my ideas in a collaborative, advisory capacity- right? I’m not doing actual work.

Regulation of professions is difficult.

In this case, the free speech argument succeeded essentially because “engineer” is not considered a sufficiently clear term. “M.D” according to the courts has a clear meaning with expectations attached, “engineer” does not.

Oregon’s Board (and presumably its legislature since they passed the laws) would like “engineer” to be an equally meaningful term as “M.D”; the courts ruled that it isn’t. Any old person can call themselves an engineer. Custodial services engineer, for example, aka a janitor.

[AlexG55]

There is also the fact that Mr Järlström is actually an engineer. He has an electrical engineering degree from his native Sweden, which he uses in his work (consulting on loudspeaker design). As this work doesn’t require him to be licensed, he doesn’t have a license.

So it’s like if a Swedish neurosurgeon, who hadn’t gone through the process to get his qualifications recognised in the US, sent the email you suggest about vaccines.

[byron_p]

When I was growing up in Tulsa, they had a system of minor traffic bumps that were there simply to note traffic. They regulated how the traffic lights worked according to, well, traffic. I thought it was brilliant. And this was WAY before computers. Worked great . Never understood why this was not universally adopted. Tulsa is kinda the Austin of Oklahoma.

[TomFury13]

So … neener neener

[simonize]

@proudbuckeye

I just assumed anyone with TWO umlauts in their name knows what they’re talking about!

I always assume that they are a heavy metal band.

[NukeML]

I am an engineer. I have undergraduate and graduate engineering degrees and worked as an engineer for quite some time now. But I have not sat for the Fundamentals of Engineering (FE) exam nor the Professional Engineering (PE) exam. To sit for the PE exam one must have passed the FE exam and worked as an engineer for a number of years. Once that is done, an engineer may use the letters P.E. in their title.

In that respect, I am not a professional engineer, which is what the State of Oregon (and many others) is considering to be an engineer. And I don’t have a gripe with that.

[Loudmouth]

Those are good comments and thanks for attaching the record. That guy actually seemed to be taunting the board. I get your analogy, but consider Nuke’s reply below. I am familiar with these sorts of regulations because I am an engineer, too. In fact, a Professional Engineer. Just for your information, in California, the State board regulates the title of engineer, including Transportation Engineer and Civil Engineer and Consulting Engineer, and so forth. Moreover, here Civil Engineers are responsible for fixed public works and may practice structural, mechanical, and electrical engineering as they relate to fixed public works, like water or wastewater treatment plants. However, the double-E (professional electrical engineer) may not practice civil engineering or traffic engineering in California unless his or her work is supervised by a Professional Engineer with the Civil specialization. This regulation is supposed to safeguard the public and prevent a Land Surveyor, or for that matter, a Medical Doctor, from marketing services and thereby contracting with public authorities and building water treatment plants—not to say neither one could be educated and skilled enough to do so. And I do not believe any self-respecting engineer would deny that the public would be safer with the longer yellow light at the turn lane.

[bobtato]

As I say, I agree the fine is petty, probably hard to defend, and certainly a bad tactical move Streisand-wise.

And, if professional licensing were widely understood and accepted, then it’d be right to focus on its occasional malfunctions. But a quick scan of this comment thread shows that is not even close to where we’re starting from. The dominant tone is “so-called ‘experts’ are making it illegal to criticise them!”, and that is bonkers.

1. It is factually wrong: the board did not fine this guy for questioning them, because they can’t. They fined him for claiming to be an engineer, i.e. to have expertise equivalent to their own; even his own defense doesn’t dispute that.

2. This is nothing to do with whether he fraudulently signed off on work, which is a licensing question. The point of protected titles is to make it clear to non-experts who has authority on specialist questions. And arguably, this guy did sow confusion as to who should have the final say. If anyone can call themselves an engineer, how are politicians (for example) supposed to know who to listen to? How would a lay person even know what qualifications to ask for? Where safety is at issue, it’s not hard to see how this could be a problem.

3. There’s, like, a basic error at work here. The meaningful definition of expertise is not “knowing a lot about something”. I might happen to know everything about horse surgery, but so what? If you have a sick horse, what you need to know is if horse vets accept that I am an expert.

We all bristle at the thought of being dismissed by experts when we know we’re right. But we also expect everyone else to prove what they claim to know. It’s just one of the disappointing realities of adult life. If you let them, though, the libertarian right will use that frustration as a ring through your nose.

[eap]

@anon62122146

could do a vastly better job of timing our traffic lights than whatever clowns they have doing it.

These are complicated systems and there is a lot more going on than you may realize. For example, changing the timing might cause a backup several blocks down. That backup causes an increase in fatalities due to rear end crashes.

Your town may indeed suck at light timing, but sometimes they have to artificially slow things down to work with a grid that was built 100 years ago for slow cars.