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Man Fined $500 for Crime of Writing 'I Am an Engineer' in an Email to the Gov't
- bmsleight_ 10y agoSimple solution: UK traffic lights, leaving Amber 3 seconds.
- bgun 10y agoHonest curiosity: is it fraud (in the US) to claim that you are a member of a profession that you are not? (I am not saying that is what he intended to do here). For example, if someone owes me money, is it illegal for me to send them a letter, in which I purport to be a lawyer?
- deleted 10y ago[deleted]
- Disgone 10y agoEngineering isn't exactly the same, but I worked IT at an architecture firm and workers there were not legally allowed to call themselves "Architect" without being licensed.
- phoenixProgram 10y agoI am a lawyer and you are practicing law without a license. Fine is $500. Send me yer moneys plz kthxbai --skittles the kitten
- bmh_ca 10y agoThere are several facts that affect whether the consequence of claiming to have a professional qualification is regulatory or criminal (being two branches of "illegal"), including (but not limited to), in no particular order: 1. Who you send it to 2. The purpose of the communication 3. The consequences of the communication 4. Whether it is inter- or intra-state 5. What profession it is There are other questions that can factor in, but the general rule is: don't lie. Lying of any form for personal gain is generally a species of fraud, but pretending to have a professional qualification – even without gain – can also incur consequences. It's not limited to professional qualifications; some places still observe the crime of jactitation, which is pretending to be married.
- peterwwillis 10y agoTo simplify this: Any title which is protected and governed by law makes it illegal for you to claim the title without being licensed to do so. "Engineer" is one of those titles. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Regulation_and_licensure_in_engineering https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Regulation_and_licensure_in_en...
- muninn_ 10y agoFrom your link: "However, it is important to make a distinction between a "graduate engineer" and a "professional engineer" or "licensed engineer." A "graduate engineer" is anyone holding a degree in engineering from an accredited four-year university program, but is not licensed to practice or offer services to the public. Unlicensed engineers usually work as employees for a company, or as professors in engineering colleges, where they are governed under the industrial exemption clause. Some states, such as Ohio and New Jersey, prohibit the use of the term "engineer" by an unlicensed person unless it is part of the internal classification of their employer." So you don't need a license to call yourself an engineer. What this effectively does is permits engineers to perform engineering tasks and be called engineers in their line of work, without having to complete the examinations and all of that jazz. Otherwise, the entire system makes 0 sense. Furthermore, this demonstrates that you may call yourself an engineer if you have graduated from engineering college as you are under granted the title "graduate engineer", and thus can use engineer for shorthand, just as "engineers in training" and "professional engineers" may call themselves engineers for short. I doubt they want to always have to call themselves professional engineers or engineers in training or face a silly fine. Though I do fully support requiring licensure for some engineering related work. Basically, if you can fuck something up that can cost lives (aviation, bridges, buildings, etc...), you should have a license. Screwing up some code or mixing industrial chemicals normally doesn't fall into that category, though. If it does then yes you should be licensed.
- anigbrowl 10y agoIt's unwise to rely on a Wikipedia for legal analysis; at best you should treat it as a good starting point for your more detailed research.
- Taniwha 10y agoWhether or not you're allowed to call yourself an engineer varies from state to state - as a very rough rule it's more likely to be regulated on the East coast than the West (Oregon excepted as we see here)
- LeifCarrotson 10y agoThere are a number of professions in the US where yes, this is somewhat regulated. I can think of a few: 1. Medical doctors 2. Certified Public Accountants 3. Lawyers 4. Professional Engineers 5. Realtors Many other professions and certifying agencies will claim that a certification is necessary to practice, and that you should pay them for the privilege, but these are some of the few that are legally protected. You need a "Professional Engineer" certificate from the NSPE to sign off on certain documents. But note that these certain documents are only used in certain fields, like civil engineering. This certification is not required to be (or to claim to be) a software engineer, electronics engineer, mechanical engineer, product engineer, chemical engineer, etc. For example, I've taken many engineering courses, I have a bachelor's of science in engineering degree, and I practice engineering day-to-day without being a professional engineer. In college, perhaps 5% of my graduating class took the PE exam? And now, few of my coworkers, customers, or suppliers are professional engineers - The two individuals that I can think of transferred into the domain out of civil engineering. The electronics engineer in the article mistakenly stumbled into the territory of civil engineers who are very, very protective of their licensure, and they overreacted IMO. I don't dispute that if he'd claimed to be an NSPE-licensed Professional Engineer, and signed off on documents which are legally required to be approved by a PE, that he'd be deserving of the punishments associated with this fraud (which are much steeper than $500). But the NSPE does not own the generic term "engineer".
- sib 10y agoTo be specific, a "Realtor" is not a profession; it is a trademarked term. To be a "Realtor" one must be a member of the National Association of Realtors, which is a trade association. It is possible to be a "real estate agent" (the profession) without being a Realtor. There are licensing requirements, which vary by state, to be a real estate agent.
- deleted 10y ago[deleted]
- anigbrowl 10y agoIt varies by state; in California the unauthorized practice of law is a crime. Perhaps predictably, the people complaining about this feel that it's a form of rent-seeking by incumbents, but none of them have bothered to consider the flip side of the equation which is that bad actors who falsely hold themselves out as licensed professionals can hurt would-be clients in two ways: by directly exploiting them for the cost of services which they are not licensed to provide, and by jeopardizing their longer-term interests in a way that might severely impact them in the future. Obviously this gentleman is not running around trying to scam Oregonians into paying for cut-price engineering work. But publicly asserting that you are licensed to practice a profession without actually being so, especially when licensure is generally easy to obtain, creates the potential for public misunderstanding. The point of the fine is not to impose a serious financial penalty (hence the token amount of %500) but to draw the public's attention to the fact that anyone holding themselves out as an engineer needs to be licensed within the jurisdiction in which they are practicing - and practicing on your own behalf is still practicing and indeed widely considered by professionals as a kind of marketing. Considering that the annual fee to practice as an engineer in Oregon is only $75, and that engineering is well established as a profession, I don't think his complaints have a whole lot of merit. Last time I looked engineers are required to take ethics classes as part of their education, and in many jurisdictions keeping ones certification up requires a certain number of hours spent in continuing education each year, same as in the medical and legal professions. If you're not actively practicing your profession then you have, legally speaking, retired and should not present yourself as being currently licensed.
- dnautics 10y agoIn this particular case, the defendant is licensed as an engineer.
- anigbrowl 10y agoAn odd statement to make, considering that his defense was that he doesn't need to be licensed engineer to call himself an engineer. Where is he licensed? Why is he not licensed in Oregon, despite having been timely notified, without penalty, of the requirement to do so if he wished to claim that title? Why did he agree to abide by this requirement then break his agreement within months?
- jdietrich 10y agoIn most states, it's illegal to braid hair without a license. http://braidingfreedom.com/ http://braidingfreedom.com/
- crocowhile 10y agoland of the free market my ass
- jack9 10y ago> is it fraud (in the US) to claim that you are a member of a profession that you are not? Architect, Lawyer and Medical Doctor, for sure.
- walshemj 10y agowould you not have to be paid to "practice"
- smnrchrds 10y agoI would argue that payment is not necessarily a requirement. If someone opens a free clinic, should they be allowed to practice medicine without a licence, because it is not really 'practice'?
- walshemj 10y agogood point
- anigbrowl 10y agoNo. Lawyers often develop their professional profile by writing introductory or analytical articles on legal topics to establish their professional competence to the interested public. If you say you are a member of a profession and are not obviously fake, most people will take that assertion at face value, and take any of your comments on that subject as truth. Not enforcing licensing requirements is basically an invitation to scammers.
- wil421 10y agoThe chart he created shows he has more engineering skills than the beaurcrats running the Oregon Sate Boards. Another example of government employees being incompentant. Here's one quick example of cities shortening yellow lights for profits.[1] 1. https://www.motorists.org/blog/6-cities-that-were-caught-shortening-yellow-light-times-for-profit/ https://www.motorists.org/blog/6-cities-that-were-caught-sho...
- miiiiiike 10y agoYep. I went to an engineering school and multiple professors told us to get our PE licenses before we called ourselves "Engineers". No court will take you seriously if you aren't licensed. Upside, if you do have a PE license you can get side-gigs as an expert witnesses.
- porpoisemonkey 10y agoHow does this apply to "software engineers"? Do they have to call themselves something else in the state? As far as I know there is no national accreditation body for the title in the US.
- criley2 10y agohttps://www.nspe.org/resources/licensure/what-pe https://www.nspe.org/resources/licensure/what-pe
- miiiiiike 10y agoI went through an ABET accredited software engineering program, they pointed us to the NSPE. I'm not a PE but I still call myself a software engineer on everything except government forms. As far as the government's concerned I'm a programmer.
- LeifCarrotson 10y agoI went through an ABET accredited electrical engineering program, and they said that those of us who didn't want to work in government shouldn't bother with it.
- miiiiiike 10y agoYeah, a lot of our courses were designed with government work in mind. CMMI.. Ooph.
- sdflkd 10y ago> As far as the government's concerned I'm a programmer. I don't think so. It's been a bit since I read up on Visa stuff (and I imagine it doesn't matter to you as an American citizen) but there are distinctions between programmer / software developer / etc.
- phoenixProgram 10y agoOregon is where I grew up. I returned there recently and was shocked at what I saw: a society destroyed by socialism. There is too little capitalism in Oregon. In fact, so little that freedom is essentially dead in Oregon. I think running all of the socialists out of the big cities and getting some fire-breathing capitalists with their immigrant sidekicks in would really crack the heads of these totalitarian nut cases. I think of Oregon when the phrase "Lois Lowry's book 'The Giver' was controversial when it came out". A society so addicted to success that it develops a kind of inability to sense its own lack of freedom...sclerotic, really. Hence the fire breathing dragons to melt things down. The great thing about capitalists is that if they don't like the laws, the laws will get changed! Almost like magic...almost.
- odammit 10y agoOregon could make a killing fining students practicing engineering in college. Way to pass up a revenue stream.
- Ductapemaster 10y agoIs it a violation of a law to write "engineer" on a resume? It's part of my title at both of my jobs - did my employer violate a law by giving a title to someone without a license? What a crazy world we've created for ourselves.
- grecy 10y agoI run up against this sometimes in Canada. I studied "Software Engineering" and have a bachelors degree from Australia. I am a member of the Australian Institute of Engineers (accredited degree). If I say something like "I am a Software Engineer" when I work in Canada, any other Engineers will get all prickly and go on about how that's not a recognized kind of Engineer, and it's illegal to say-so, blah blah. Even if I put B. Eng. (Software) after my name they get uppity. To get my degree accredited in Canada, I must work some huge number of hours as a Software Engineer working with Software Engineers. But of course, there is no such thing in Canada, and so... yeah.
- conwaysgame 10y agoSoftware Engineering is definitely a recognized engineering in Canada. And it's only a year of working with a P.Eng. But you're right, it's a chicken/egg problem, which is super unfortunate. I think somewhere down the line accreditation will be more important, but PEO has backed themselves in to a corner.
- smnrchrds 10y agoThere are 598 Software Professional Engineers in Ontario alone. You can see their names by selecting 'Software Engineering' as dicipline and leaving the rest of the form empty here: http://forum.peo.on.ca/cgi-bin/EPIM_Search/EPIM_Form_Search.do http://forum.peo.on.ca/cgi-bin/EPIM_Search/EPIM_Form_Search.... Furthurmore, there are 1316 Computer Engineers. These are not huge numbers, but it is wrong to say that there is no such thing as software engineering in Canada.
- glibgil 10y agoComputer engineer is something else. It is like an electrical engineer for computing
- blackguardx 10y agoNo, a computer engineering program typically offers a blended course of software and hardware. It is typically half way between computer science and electrical engineering. That being said, it all depends on the university. At some universities, you can pretty much take all comp sci classes as a computer engineering major. The major difference is that it is a "real engineering" degree in that it requires the engineering core curriculum.
- deleted 10y ago[deleted]
- otto_ortega 10y agook, I got the title of "Computer Science Engineer" from an university in Central America, is there any other requirement I should fulfill before introducing myself as an "Engineer" in California or Washington?
- bnolsen 10y agoYes, take the EIT and several other tests and you become a certified engineer.
- chrisferry 10y agoNah son, all you need is your MSCE and you are golden!
- wiredfool 10y agoGot one of those, but I think you mean MCSE. (I've got the master of science in civil engineering, not the Microsoft one)
- deleted 10y ago[deleted]
- awinter-py 10y agoWe need to design better due process for fines. Privacy may be part of the problem -- yes it would suck to publicize everyone's whole history of administrative fines, but making this information public by default would limit corrupt application of the rules.
- coupdejarnac 10y agoAs far as I know, all disciplinary actions for state-regulated licenses are public information.
- anigbrowl 10y agoWhat's wrong with this? The Board asked him to stop calling himself an engineer, without any fines, and he agreed. He broke the agreement, repeatedly, at which point they launched an investigation and then slapped him with a very small fine. I see absolutely zero evidence of corruption here. It seems a lot of readers are only looking at matters from Jarlstrom's side, and completely ignoring the fact of his bad faith.
- awinter-py 10y agoyou're not exactly wrong. In my opinion this is a first amendment case. The supreme court created something called 'strict scrutiny' to analyze cases where other laws encroach on the first amendment. Under strict scrutiny, the government needs to prove a compelling state interest to restrict free speech. Does the state of oregon have a compelling interest in preventing this person from informing a state agency, via private correspondence, of a safety-related calibration issue in their traffic light system? If you think so, interested to hear your argument.
- patorjk 10y agoEveryone's talking about the title issue, but it's amazing that the Oregon board doesn't believe he should be able to publish or present his ideas. You can go on and on about what it means to be a certain title, but the man should be able to put forth his work and ideas.
- mannykannot 10y agoTurning the issue into a clear 1st. amendment case just goes to show how smart the board is.
- anigbrowl 10y agoBut they don't. He's perfectly at liberty to do so, but not to assert professional standing which he lacks in order to make it seem more convincing. Did you read the Board's complaint? At first the asked the Board to investigate the city even though the Board had no jurisdiction to do so. they advised him of this and also cautioned him not to advertise himself as an engineer, in accordance with Oregon's code. He agreed, but then went on to write to various government and media entities promoting his idea and promoting himself as an engineer, before asserting again to the Board that he was an engineer - the very same Board to whom he had given his assurance that he would not hold himself out as such. He could have put the exact same information and proposals out in public, saying 'I'm not an engineer, but I believe I have come up with a great solution to this traffic problem' and he would have been fine. It's simply not true for you to assert that they're trying to censor his ideas.
- JBReefer 10y agoLook, you're not wrong. But you have to remember that none of that matters, because I can put the following notice out, and any government prohibition of such is a big payday for me: "I, JB Reefer, am God, command you to stop driving. I am the king of all engineers, president of space, etc etc etc" and it doesn't matter. You really do get to say whatever the fuck you want in this country, as long as it doesn't cause direct harm to someone else. There's no "this doesn't apply to job title" caveat.
- musesum 10y agoA friend grew an engineering company in Oregon from 200 employees to > 1000 employees. He took the company public and is an industry standard. His reward: getting charged with not following the letter of the law. He spent most of his life savings fighting back. Moral: do business in a different state.
- coupdejarnac 10y agoIf it was because of the engineering license issue, most or all states have similar laws.
- musesum 10y agoPut obliquely: I suspect that Washington or California would have yielded better outcomes.
- coupdejarnac 10y agoPerhaps. Here in Texas, practicing engineering without a license will result in a fine and a cease and desist, with criminal charges on subsequent occurrences.
- ghostly_s 10y agoI don't think the issue is the law, it's the seemingly capricious enforcement.
- coupdejarnac 10y agoIt might seem capricious, but what typically happens is that companies operate under the radar until they get caught. Unfortunately, being ignorant of the law is not a good excuse. I'm not even sure how you can have an engineering firm that large and be ignorant of the need for licensure. It sounds like they blew it off, and it finally came back to bite them.
- anigbrowl 10y agoWhat's capricious? They gave him a polite warning with an explanation and no penalty which he agreed to abide by, and then promptly broke. He only made it onto their radar because he contacted them in the first place to try and lean on a city that had issued a traffic ticket he was upset about.
- avar 10y agoThis title is misleading clickbait, from the article: > of more concern, are the documents you > provided that indicate you may have > engaged in unlicensed engineering work > in Oregon. They're clearly being dicks, but him calling himself an engineer in an E-Mail isn't the full story.
- jack9 10y agoI noticed that the story has salient omissions. Clickbait, possibly. Miscarriage of the public interest, probably.
- nikki-9696 10y agoThis is why we can't have nice things.
- Clownshoesms 10y agoI guess I could see he might have an axe to grind wrt to his partner's ticket, but if he has a point, they should at least (being representatives of us poor ol citizens) respond to the point and not just slap a fine on him. Seems incredibly petty.
- exabrial 10y agoGood luck extracting that money from him, if I were him, I'd safely ignore the notice. They're going to have to prove what he does for work falls under the legal definition of engineering in that state. Also, if his job title includes "engineer" the board is going to have a very difficult time justifying the case. And.... this is a civil matter. His best option is to get a good lawyer and just ignore them. Yet another reason for small government.
- anigbrowl 10y agoYou really ought to read the Board's side of this in the linked documents before jumping to multiple incorrect conclusions based on his version of events.
- exabrial 10y agoWhat? That he claimed to be an engineer? The board shouldn't exist as part of our government.
- anigbrowl 10y agoYou realize this all started when Jarlstrom contacted the board to request that they launch an investigation of the city where his wife had received a traffic ticket? 'The board shouldn't exist' is a novel proposition. I guess you can't understand what interest the state might have in the ability to commission accurate land surveys and reliable public works. Almost makes you wonder how these things come into being in the first place, doesn't it?
- mankash666 10y agoThe state fears challenges to all previously issued traffic violations similar to that challenged by this guy. That'd turn into a legal and financial nightmare. Hence the subversion
- deleted 10y ago[deleted]
- account1984 10y agoI am frankly both surprised and unsurprised at the same time with the comments from those supportive of government regulation of software engineering. If your a hack who didn't learn to program until you went to school, I suppose I understand, you want to limit those entering your field to those who paid the same to play. However, how about all of those who are likely far smarter than you and learned to program as children and got into the industry right off the bat - does your jealousy dictate that they should have to pay some sort of admission cost? It's pretty cute how the same yuppies who are supportive of strict regulation are lining up to praise childhood programming courses. By the time our children are grown, programming will be illegal without a license - ushered in by the mayhem created by hipsters programming insecure IoT devices. These are the same people who praise curiosity out of one side of their mouth, but insist no one should practice cryptography because it's far too hard for mortals to understand. I would be delighted if academic America would get off it's high horse. You're starting to look an awful lot like Hollywood circa 1998.
- anigbrowl 10y agoLiterally nobody is making that argument, but have a good day.
- account1984 10y agoA few moments of reviewing your comment history in this thread indicates that you are not far from inferring a general complacency with the state of affairs - and it's okay, you aren't alone in this thread. However, that is the problem - people shouldn't be pushed around by bureaucratic functionaries because he hasn't paid the cover charge to use the title that is appropriate for his trade. He was sending an intelligible email with genuine, well researched claims - he was disrespected, fined and suppressed. I wonder how many emails Oregon is receiving now from engineers?
- anigbrowl 10y agoI suggest you spend more than a few moments on it as my arguments seem to have sailed completely over your head. Did you read any of the primary source documents in the article? If not then this is going to be a waste of time. If so, please reconcile your arguments with the fact that Jarlstrom initiated contact with the board in an attempt to push a city authority around, and then broke the agreement he made to abide by Oregon's code when it was explained to him absent any kind of bureaucratic sanction.
- cwills 10y agoShouldn't need a license to prove you're an engineer unless say perhaps you're running an engineering business, where people's lives can depend on your work - e.g building a bridge. If you have formal education in engineering, then I would think you can call yourself an engineer?
- maerF0x0 10y agoThe bureaucracy wins again. Clearly this is just an attempt to shoe a fly.
- takk309 10y agoThe issue that the Board has is that he claimed to be an engineer in a public forum. The Boards interpretation of "engineer" in this context was to mean Traffic Engineer. The Board warned Järlström that he was in violation of the Law and asked him to stop claiming to be an engineer, to which he agreed. It was later, when he continued to claim to be an engineer that legal action was taken. It is also of note, and stated in the Board's documentation of the case, that Sweden has no legal standards for engineers of any kind. Finally, full disclosure, I am a registered and licensed traffic engineer. [edit] grammar
- rmxt 10y agoCompletely agreed. He pretty much barked up the one tree that actively cares about use of the title "engineer", and used it in violation of the law (as it is now). Had he sent the letter/formula/math/suggestions to the local state university civil engineering department, the local/state Dept. of Transportation, or the local/state representative, the response would have fallen on less deaf ears, and his use of the title would have likely gone less noticed.
- gtirloni 10y agoFining the man was probably what the law dictates. Yet, it feels so wrong in this case. Reminds me of this talk by Barry Schwartz: https://www.ted.com/talks/barry_schwartz_on_our_loss_of_wisdom https://www.ted.com/talks/barry_schwartz_on_our_loss_of_wisd...
- anigbrowl 10y agoThey didn't fine him at first. They warned him not to do it, and explained why. He acknowledged this and agreed in September 2015 not to present himself as an engineer again. Then he changed his mind and resumed doing so. Barry Schwartz specializes in telling only half the case to people who know nothing about law, while leaving out any facts that would show his clients in a bad light. Like he'll tell you about the plight of an oyster farmer whose business was shut down by the evil federal government, without mentioning that the farmer in question signed a contract for a fixed-term lease and the government extended the deadline several times before finally enforcing the terms of the lease. Pick one or more of his cases then go look up the actual court opinions. The facts always seem to be very different from the version he presents to his audiences. He relies on people taking his claims at face value and not doing any fact-checking of their own.
- maker1138 10y agoLooks like there needs to be March for Engineers on Beaverton OR.
- mschuster91 10y agoNothing new in legal terms, claiming regulated titles is a crime or offense in a lot of jurisdictions - including Germany (§132a StGB, see https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Missbrauch_von_Titeln,_Berufsbezeichnungen_und_Abzeichen https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Missbrauch_von_Titeln,_Berufsb...). Unrelated to the legal issues, what the engineering board is doing seems to be beyond ridiculous. IMHO Mr. Järlström should have informed himself better about the implications of the word "engineer"... but you know the old saying "three felonies a day", this case seems to validate it.
- anigbrowl 10y agoThree felonies a day isn't an old saying, it's a buzzword pushed by an attorney who makes a living from telling highly exaggerated stories about overbearing government that don't stand up under scrutiny. Have a read of the documents in this case and notice how the engineering board courteously informed Jarlstrom of his error without any fines or penalties, only for him to turn around and repeat the behavior he had been warned against.
- ChicagoBoy11 10y agoProfessional licensing of just about every kind serves one and one purpose only: Fatten someone's pocket and artificially restrict the labor supply to favor those already licensed. Period. You can certainly make an argument that it looks like he went out of his way to piss 'em off, but the fact that he could be charged for calling himself "an engineer" -- and the fact that we all have come to a point where we think it is something reasonable -- is so upsetting.
- ThrustVectoring 10y agoOf course the point of a license is to help those who can get licensed at the expense of those who cannot. The ethical systems of licensing have a point, where society wants to favor those who can get a license. Driver's licenses are a good example of this - we as a society want to artificially restrict the supply of drivers to those who can pass examinations for vision, knowing the rules of the road, and ability to follow certain professional rules (eg, not driving drunk). Or electricians, where the cabal of people who know electrical code has a distinct advantage for society (that is, not burning down their buildings via faulty wiring).
- dhfhduk 10y agoThis is one of the great unrecognized problems with the economy at the moment. I'm not so sure about engineering, but it's created all sorts of monopolies in health care that have nothing really to do with actual safety risks or any kind of rational approach to mitigating risk, and everything to do with protecting guild members. License = union.
- jpambrun 10y agoNo. It's about public safety. Do you want anybody calling themselves Doctors and making surgery without proper training? How about civil engineers building bridge? How about software engineers that work on medical devices that can kill? If you are building iOS apps you are probably a developer, not an engineer.
- ChicagoBoy11 10y agoI actually do. Doctors with "proper training" still kill people and are grossly negligent. Like I replied to someone above, where I think I and you would sharply disagree on is the notion that without mandated professional licensing it would be a free for all. I don't think that is true at all. I think systems of accreditation, checking for competency, etc. would emerge, and likely even be better than the ones we have today.
- ryanmarsh 10y agoI just did a search for "software engineer" in Oregon on Indeed. Shopify and many others are using the term engineer in their job listings. Are candidates referring to themselves as engineers to get these jobs? Are they then putting themselves at risk?
- takk309 10y agoContext matters. The job listings you are finding are not implying they are traffic engineering positions.
- geggam 10y agoSo is what he discussed actually relevant and is this an attempt to silence someone ?
- deleted 10y ago[deleted]
- jack9 10y agoSo now we have a place where you can self-identify as an opposing gender but not as a profession you practice. I'd duplicate his letters to the same recipients, if I could.
- fsloth 10y agoIn context: The guy was a swede. Correct me if I'm wrong, but I think that in general we in the nordic countries don't have an additional licensing scheme for engineers. Having a university degree is considered sufficient proof of skill to get hired by an engineering company. And, the last I looked, our houses and bridges were pretty okay. Nobody designs stuff alone - most structural engineers work for one engineering company or another and work in teams. So, in his context, having a degree is sufficient to be able to call himself an engineer. Funny he hasn't acclimatized to US, though.
- anigbrowl 10y agoFor sure. But they took time to explain the issue to him in an agreeable way, and then he broke the agreement. As a Euro myself, my experience is that many Americans' complaints about governance turn out to be, well, exaggerated. Of course one runs into unhelpful bureaucrats from time to time and some cases are egregious but on the whole it's not nearly as bad as you might imagine from reading discussions like that. It's worth bearing in mind that there are multiple different legal philosophies at play in the USA, some of which have historically been violently opposed to each other. If you are interested in these social dynamics (and you probably should be at this point in history) then I strongly recommend American Nations by Colin Woodard as a guide for the perplexed.
- taf2 10y agoInteresting- so I have a BS in computer engineering. Do I get to say I'm an engineer or would that be illegal?
- jpambrun 10y agoIn Canada it would be illegal. You need to be a member of the professional professional order to be able to call yourself an engineer. I have a BS and a Ph.D. in EE, still can't call myself engineer (nor doctor).
- mikeyouse 10y agoAssuming you're in Oregon; You can say you're an engineer You can recommend new traffic signal algorithms But you can't say you're an engineer while recommending new traffic signal algorithms
- memracom 10y agoWhen they told him that changing an engineered ITE formula constitutes the practice of engineering without a licence, he should have claimed that he was a performance artist and his letters should be considered a comedic performance designed to draw public attention to the court jesters who claim to be engineers but came up with the flawed ITE formula which even a performance artist can find flaws with. That would be free speech for sure.
- djrconcepts 10y agoWould be nice if traffic lights in the US had a countdown time. Many other countries have countdowns on their traffic lights. The US has some catching up to do.
- madebysquares 10y agoVery click baity headline. Good article none the less.
- squarefoot 10y agoI seemed to recall of some accounts of yellow traffic lights times kept deliberately short in order to catch drivers passing during red lights and fine them, and a quick search confirmed this. https://www.motorists.org/blog/6-cities-that-were-caught-shortening-yellow-light-times-for-profit/ https://www.motorists.org/blog/6-cities-that-were-caught-sho... Probably not related with this case, but anyway...
- chrismcb 10y agoThis is all for and dandy, except he wasn't practicing engineering, as per their own definitions.
- threepipeproblm 10y ago“People of the same trade seldom meet together, even for merriment and diversion, but the conversation ends in a conspiracy against the public, or in some contrivance to raise prices.” -- Adam Smith
- erikpukinskis 10y agoI think I will stop using the word engineer entirely. I'm just going to refer to all "engineers" as structural designer, mechanical designer, etc. They want "engineer" to have legal ramifications then it should be used only in legal documents, not colloquial use. I appreciate the existence of the certification, but I think using the same word for the certification and the work is an attempt to confuse the public about the difference between a licensed engineer and someone applying the same methods without a license.