Posted on 04/27/2017 2:34:41 PM PDT by artichokegrower
An Oregon man has been fined $500 by the state government for suggesting that yellow traffic lights should last slightly longer.
The Oregon State Board of Examiners for Engineering and Land Surveying hit Mats Järlström with a fine for unlawfully engaging in the practice of engineering by studying the states traffic flow systems.
Do philosophers report to state licensing boards?
It would be interesting to see how the timing of the yellow signal in Oregon compares with the timing in California which is specified by the state and is determined by the speed limits on the roads at the traffic signal. The higher the speed limit, the longer the time required for the yellow signal. I have lived in CA for 47 years and never experienced a traffic signal with a too short a time period.
When traffic signal cameras were installed in many California municipalities, the length of the yellow signal was decreased by some of the companies that installed and operated the cameras. As a result, lawsuits were filed, the major one being in San Diego, and quite a few of the municipalities removed the cameras.
Why do they call these states liberal when they are as illiberal as can be?
Because commies lie ... that’s what they do ...
It’s when you spell “Engineer” correctly, with a capital “E”, and sign your name other than with an “X” mark that you have to pay for a license for the privilege of rising above the herd. All he had to do to escape this criminal accusation was to present his data as a statistician rather than a an “Engineer.”
There was a Moscow man who did a study on Stalin and found out that he only had one nut.
Stalin shot the guy.
5.56mm
The Federal Internal Revenue Service has a job title known as “engineer”. Are those folks operating outside of Oregon law?
.
Unless he charged money for his study, he didn’t break any law.
This is a violation of free speech.
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If he called himself a professional engineer (a PE), implying that he had gone through the certification process, then I would agree with the board. If he simply called himself an engineer, then I think that the board is way out of line. In my profession, most anyone can call themselves an accountant if they have any training in accounting or hold an accounting-related job but they cannot call themselves a CPA without having gone through the certification process.
The term engineer is a pretty generic term which someone who holds an engineering degree should be able to use. BTW are the people who run trains allowed to call themselves engineers in Oregon?
This is tyranny, an abuse of government to threaten and intimidate legitimate complaints.
They created a lane that went south in the morning and north in the evening.
The only problem is that in order to make absolutely certain that no car went the wrong way at the wrong time, they had to surround it with lots of concrete with lots of controls for ingress and egress.
Basically they created a two-lane wide lane that went in only one direction.
They could have saved a lot of money and hassle if they had just added a new lane to each side of the freeway.
What idiots!
He could have gone there saying he wuz a rednek injuneer.
“If I said what I think should be done to some of these Oregon bureaucrats, I’d have the FBI at my door.”
If there were any sense left in this country the FBI would show up at your door offering to HELP!
“If I presented an opinion on a legal matter and I identified myself as a lawyer in my correspondence with the governing body I was dealing with, you can be damn sure that the state bar association would have a problem with it (and rightfully so) if I wasn’t really a lawyer. “
You are confusing ambiguous reference to credentials with the commission of prohibited acts.
Generally the law prohibits “the unauthorized PRACTICE of [engineering, law]. Stating “I am a [lawyer, engineer, doctor] and this is what I think about what you are doing” even if you were not licensed, when you hadn’t actually done anything, and weren’t hired by anyone and weren’t purporting to represent anyone other than yourself, is not the practice of anything.
Sounds like city hall putting itself first Just Because.
Then Oregon might want to do something about all those Custodial Engineers they have cleaning their offices every night.
https://www.salaryexpert.com/salary/job/custodial-engineer/united-states/connecticut/portland
“Its when you spell Engineer correctly,”
Uh, that’s the first clue you’re dealing with a fake.
The response of the Board was illiberal. They might have corrected his language, if it was wrong at all, without being penalizing Philadelphia lawyers about it. The right to complain about how bad their engineering was, is still sacrosanct. I think they, not our amateur engineer, picked the wrong hill to die on.
I don't think so. We had a lengthy conversation on this subject on a different thread last night. The language of some state statutes is very specific about this ... to the point where my company's legal department did a thorough review of all the laws and regulations in the states where we operate, and had the company even change many job titles and descriptions of our capabilities in some of our marketing materials.
I had a lawyer friend tell me that he refuses to even give out one of his business cards in a state where he is not licensed to practice law.
I don't think this guy should be fined $500 for what he did, but I understand that he may have previously been warned with a "cease and desist" letter from the Oregon licensing board.
But it may have been so broad and vague as to challenge his very right to challenge engineers by whatever definition.
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