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posted by Fnord666 on Wednesday October 23 2019, @08:21PM   Printer-friendly
from the there-goes-the-revenue dept.

Arthur T Knackerbracket has found the following story:

After Mats Järlström lost an initial legal challenge in 2014, a federal judge in January this year ruled Oregon's rules prohibiting people from representing themselves as engineers without a professional license from the state are unconstitutional.

And now Järlström's calculations and advocacy have led the Institute of Transportation Engineers (ITE) to revisit its guidelines [PDF] for the timing of traffic signals. As a result, yellow lights around the globe could burn for longer – ITE is an international advisory group with members in 90 countries.

Järlström discovered a problem with the timing of traffic lights in Beaverton, Oregon, after his wife Laurie received a $260 ticket for a red light violation from an automated traffic light camera in 2013.

Järlström, who studied electrical engineering in Sweden, challenged the ticket, arguing the timing interval for yellow lights fails to account for scenarios like a driver entering an intersection and slowing to make a turn. A slightly longer interval, he argued, would allow drivers making turns on a yellow light to exit intersections before the light turned red. Even a small timing increase would help – the automatically generated ticket in this case was issued 0.12 seconds after the light turned red.

When Järlström brought the issue to the Oregon State Board of Examiners for Engineering and Land Surveying, the state board opened an investigation in 2015 and fined him $500 the following year for practicing engineering without a professional license.

Thanks to the assistance of the Institute for Justice, a legal advocacy organization focused on limiting the scope of government, Järlström has won not only the right to refer to himself as an engineer, a refund of the surveying board fine (though not the ticket penalty), and the removal of the moving violation from his car insurance premium, but also the opportunity to fix a formula that has governed traffic light timing since 1960.

Since the injunction prohibiting Oregon from enforcing its unconstitutional speech restriction, Järlström has been working with other engineers and advocates to change the way traffic lights work. Over the summer, an ITE panel met to hear arguments along those lines and last month it agreed light timing should be reconsidered.

Have any of the soylentils here noticed shorter yellow lights at intersections after red light cameras have been installed?

-- submitted from IRC


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  • (Score: 2) by richtopia on Wednesday October 23 2019, @08:53PM (12 children)

    by richtopia (3160) on Wednesday October 23 2019, @08:53PM (#910990) Homepage Journal

    I am surprised by the initial outcome. I went to school for engineering and work as an applications engineer. I have never claimed to be a Professional Engineer, which in some industries (Civil Engineering in particular) is critical for practicing. My understanding is that you can be an engineer, but you cannot sign off specific documents that require a Professional Engineer.

    The article does not specifically go into the distinction between being an engineer and licensed Professional Engineer, but the context makes it appear that Järlström only attempted to point out the issue with the traffic light flow and cite his profession as engineer.

    Without more details I cannot form a strong opinion. There are definitely applications where you need a paper trail and certification to apply your trade as an engineer, and someone impersonating a PE should be fined. An engineer signing off on a bridge needs to have the qualifications to make that potentially life-threatening decision. If someone impersonates a doctor there are fines for similar reasons; a technical expert making decisions that could result in human death needs to be prevented.

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  • (Score: 5, Informative) by fustakrakich on Wednesday October 23 2019, @09:02PM (8 children)

    by fustakrakich (6150) on Wednesday October 23 2019, @09:02PM (#910993) Journal

    The guy wasn't signing any multi million dollar contracts or selling any bridges. The whole argument is a bogus distraction from the corrupt business deals made for those cameras.

    --
    La politica e i criminali sono la stessa cosa..
    • (Score: 5, Insightful) by JoeMerchant on Wednesday October 23 2019, @10:05PM (7 children)

      by JoeMerchant (3937) on Wednesday October 23 2019, @10:05PM (#911010)

      Once upon a traffic school, I had an instructor "explain the law" to the class regarding red light timing and intersections. The instructor explained thusly:

      First, define intersection: Draw an extension of the borders of the intersecting roadways, where they overlap is the intersection, often considerably inset from any painted lines, crosswalks, etc.

      A vehicle enters an intersection when the first part of the vehicle "breaks the plane" of the intersection, meaning: crosses into the overlap as described above.

      Once in the intersection, that vehicle may take as much time as is necessary to safely exit the intersection. No "red light infraction" is incurred if the forward edge of the vehicle "breaks the plane" of the intersection before the light turns red, basically - once you are out there it is your intersection, you own it until you clear out - which you are obliged to do at the earliest safe opportunity. However, if the vehicle does not enter the intersection proper before the light turns red, then "breaking the plane" of the intersection when that vehicle's traffic control signal is red is an infraction.

      Sounds reasonable to me, may even match up with some state statutes, who knows.

      On the other hand, I had a cop write me a red light ticket when I clearly was into and through an intersection long before the light ever turned red explain it to me this way: "You can take me to court if you want, when we get there it will be your word against mine, and the judges almost always side with the cop."

      In the case with the video cameras, you don't have that wonderful human (porcine?) factor to deal with, but... are they really following the law or just making shit up, sending people tickets and hoping they don't fight them in court? I know when Arizona rolled these things out years ago, anyone who contested the ticket got no contest from the issuing agency - scot free, because the agency didn't want to have the argument in court. Still, most people paid.

      --
      🌻🌻 [google.com]
      • (Score: 2) by exaeta on Thursday October 24 2019, @02:37PM (6 children)

        by exaeta (6957) on Thursday October 24 2019, @02:37PM (#911208) Homepage Journal
        Law varies by state. Ultimately, the jury decides if you were in the "intersection" not a math formula.
        --
        The Government is a Bird
        • (Score: 3, Interesting) by JoeMerchant on Thursday October 24 2019, @04:00PM (4 children)

          by JoeMerchant (3937) on Thursday October 24 2019, @04:00PM (#911245)

          Dunno about your state, juries have nothing to do with traffic court in Florida, and the testimony of witnesses is notorious.

          Also, have "fought" about 4 tickets in various Florida traffic courts, Dade, Broward, Manatee... my judges ran about 2 vs 2 for bias toward cops or citizens, but even the citizens who had a "judge on their side" usually failed to produce much in the way of evidence for their defense - it still came down to: if the cop showed up to court, the cop won, which also ran about 50/50 - though I did notice a lot fewer cops in the courtrooms with the citizen biased judges - I think they know when to go grab a donut rather than stand and lose.

          And, for the record, I think most cops are not pigs, however, I have definitely encountered more than one who was not afraid at all to lie to the citizen or the judge, about a f-ing traffic offence, and if they do that what kind of credibility do they have in murder trials? "If the glove don't fit, you must acquit!"

          --
          🌻🌻 [google.com]
          • (Score: 2) by bzipitidoo on Friday October 25 2019, @01:50AM (3 children)

            by bzipitidoo (4388) on Friday October 25 2019, @01:50AM (#911464) Journal

            Since revenue is what so much traffic enforcement is really about, always fighting is a viable strategy. One thing they count on is people just rolling over. People are busy. They even set the fines low enough that most people will conclude fighting is not worth their time and effort.

            While scoring a win is nice, and in cases involving a cop there's always a chance the cop won't show, the real object is to make sure the city doesn't profit by forcing them to spend the money for a hearing or trial or whatever, even if it is a kangaroo court. Make them bleed money.

            • (Score: 2) by JoeMerchant on Friday October 25 2019, @02:01PM (2 children)

              by JoeMerchant (3937) on Friday October 25 2019, @02:01PM (#911631)

              Make them bleed money.

              I did that, up until the one where I drove an extra 500 mile round trip to make the court date - multipurpose trip, but the date was driven by the court... only to get there and have the cop stand up and lie, not a little lie, but reading a complete fantasy script from his notebook about things "he witnessed" that didn't even come close to happening. Sure, they didn't make any money that day, but I really didn't get much satisfaction from "burning" the jurisdiction so far from my normal daily life.

              --
              🌻🌻 [google.com]
              • (Score: 2) by bzipitidoo on Friday October 25 2019, @09:14PM (1 child)

                by bzipitidoo (4388) on Friday October 25 2019, @09:14PM (#911869) Journal

                Good on you for hitting them where it hurts! Yet I agree it's at best a marginal victory and not near as satisfying as exposing their lies and forcing them to clean up their act. Another thing to try is the boycott. Of course they won't care about a few people boycotting them, but if enough do it that the Chamber of Commerce notices the hit, city government is going to feel the heat.

                I wonder what the Chamber would think if they were the recipients of a letter writing campaign from thousands of people swearing not to shop in that city until the predatory policing is stopped. I have never heard of any such campaign directed at a Chamber of Commerce, might be an interesting first, What usually happens is that the state gets so much flak over the city's egregious policing that they step in and squash everything.

                It wasn't smart phone cameras alone that finally exposed the routine lying and brutality of the police. It was also the means to bring these damning videos to the public.

                • (Score: 2) by JoeMerchant on Friday October 25 2019, @09:20PM

                  by JoeMerchant (3937) on Friday October 25 2019, @09:20PM (#911872)

                  Since the spread of dashcams, I have noticed a drop in pig-like behavior... whether that's pigs reforming, or departments cleaning up their stockyard to reduce liability, I don't really care. Transparency is good.

                  --
                  🌻🌻 [google.com]
        • (Score: 2) by toddestan on Saturday October 26 2019, @05:55AM

          by toddestan (4982) on Saturday October 26 2019, @05:55AM (#911996)

          Around here, you're not supposed to enter the intersection at all unless you can also proceed through the intersection. As such, if you enter the intersection, even if it's green, but if you do it when there's no way for you to proceed through the intersection, that can be an infraction.

          This is easiest to understand with the left-turn-yield-on-green lights. When the light turns green, people like to creep into the intersection while they wait for a break in the opposing traffic. If there's no break in the traffic, and the light turns red before you can make your left turn, then you can get ticketed for running the right even though you entered the intersection while it was green. What you're supposed to do is wait until you see a break in the traffic and only then enter the intersection to when you can proceed with making your turn. Of course, a lot of people creep into the intersection and wait anyway, and generally the cops aren't going to ticket you for it, though they could.

  • (Score: 4, Insightful) by sjames on Wednesday October 23 2019, @10:33PM (1 child)

    by sjames (2882) on Wednesday October 23 2019, @10:33PM (#911019) Journal

    IIRC, the whole thing was an attempt to make him shut up. Oregon claimed that simply by applying the term engineer to himself in any form was an infraction even though he never claimed to be licensed in any capacity. What he actually claimed was that he had an engineering degree (he does) and had been employed as an engineer (he had been).

    There is a big difference between claiming to have a relevant education or working at the task of engineering and claiming to be a PE. The state was pointedly failing to make the distinction.

    • (Score: 3, Informative) by JoeMerchant on Wednesday October 23 2019, @10:52PM

      by JoeMerchant (3937) on Wednesday October 23 2019, @10:52PM (#911021)

      Falls into the old "worth a try, maybe he'll give up" school of legal defense.

      --
      🌻🌻 [google.com]
  • (Score: 2) by HiThere on Thursday October 24 2019, @12:37AM

    by HiThere (866) Subscriber Badge on Thursday October 24 2019, @12:37AM (#911060) Journal

    IIRC, he was a professional engineer in Sweden, but not in Oregon. So his claim to be an engineer was valid, but he wouldn't be allowed to practice in Oregon because he never when through the official channels to become a locally registered engineer.

    --
    Javascript is what you use to allow unknown third parties to run software you have no idea about on your computer.