10 ms·
Quick summary: when someone is making a right-turn, and the light has changed to yellow, they do not have sufficient time to finish their turn before the light
by herodotus 7y ago
Quick summary: when someone is making a right-turn, and the light has changed to yellow, they do not have sufficient time to finish their turn before the light turns red. Therefore, at lights with red-light cameras, many people who could not possibly stop in time are getting tickets. (The point is that the fact that cars turning have to slow down must be taken into account when calculating how long it takes to traverse the intersection. If you are going at close to the speed limit, you get through while yellow, but if you have slowed down because you plan to turn, and the yellow occurs too late for you to stop, you will be long enough in the intersection to get a ticket).
Mr Jarlstrom made many efforts to point this out to the Beaverton (OR) city council. Not only did the officials treat him with disdain, the state even fined him for practising engineering without a license. (Talk about shoot the messenger!)
However, it turns out he was right, and he has been vindicated in an article in the Journal of the Institute of Transportation Engineers.
- calvinmorrison 7y agoFined for practicing engineering without a liocense. Institutions will always protect themselves but this is absurd
- tptacek 7y agoNot really. I mean, fining this person was absurd. But licensing the title "engineer" isn't absurd; bad engineering gets people killed.
- masklinn 7y ago> fining this person was absurd. But licensing the title "engineer" isn't absurd You can't logically have one without the other. If he claimed to be an engineer (which he acknowledges) and the state claims the title for licensing (which it did) then you can't enforce that licensing without some sort of penalty.
- detaro 7y agoYou easily can, by being more strict about what constitutes the use of the title of engineer.
- ncmncm 7y agoExactly: sign off on civil works plans: licensed. Charge for advice related to:: licensed. Everything else: not.
- Mirioron 7y agoSure you can. You can make a legal requirement that somebody has to be licensed to sign off on things that require the license without fining for the use of the word. Imagine that you're an engineer in Germany, you go to Oregon and somebody asks you what you do for a living. You reply with "I'm an engineer" and get fined because you're not licensed in Oregon.
- eesmith 7y agoIn an oddly mirrored version, up until about 12 years ago it was illegal for someone with a PhD from outside the EU to use the title "Dr." in Germany, without going through specific paperwork to get permission to use that title. http://htor.inf.ethz.ch/blog/index.php/2008/11/06/you-can-also-call-me-dr-in-germany/ http://htor.inf.ethz.ch/blog/index.php/2008/11/06/you-can-al... quotes a Washington Post piece: > At least seven U.S. citizens working as researchers in Germany have faced criminal probes in recent months for using the title “Dr.” on their business cards, Web sites and resumes. They all hold doctoral degrees from elite universities back home A NZ PhD holder in Germany could get in legal trouble until at 2012 - http://www.stuff.co.nz/editors-picks/6783089/Germany-goes-for-the-doctor-on-our-PhDs http://www.stuff.co.nz/editors-picks/6783089/Germany-goes-fo... .
- strictnein 7y agoI really don't understand this backing of the state here. There is a vast gulf between stating one is an engineer, which many people are, and that one is a PE. Reminds me of zero tolerance rules at schools, where adults claim that they can't understand the difference between two very different things.
- benibela 7y agoWhat about software engineers?
- tptacek 7y agoThe simplest way to resolve that dilemma is to acknowledge that almost nothing we do is "engineering".
- ghaff 7y agoYou can also overstate how much engineering generally is about rigorous processes and theoretical correctness as opposed to heuristics and empiricism. I don't actually disagree with your general point. But there are plenty of examples of civil engineering project failures because of defective materials and the like and there are established practices in many areas of software. I've worked in engineering outside of software--and was even on track to get a PE--and a lot of that was pretty ad hoc.
- tptacek 7y agoI'm still kind of haunted by this very concise and blunt argument by 'jcranmer: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22315607 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22315607 (I hadn't read about the KC Hyatt disaster before).
- ghaff 7y agoThe Hyatt accident was a pretty massive screwup. There are other examples. See, e.g. http://www.slate.com/blogs/the_eye/2014/04/17/the_citicorp_tower_design_flaw_that_could_have_wiped_out_the_skyscraper.html http://www.slate.com/blogs/the_eye/2014/04/17/the_citicorp_t... OTOH, Heartbleed had as much to do with critical open source code being maintained by someone who was basically doing on a shoestring via donations as a lack of software engineering processes in general.
- tptacek 7y ago
- kodablah 7y agoBad engineering shouldn't be related to use of the general English word, nor should it be used as justification over ownership of such a word. I admit I am unfamiliar with this specific case, but if he claimed he was an "engineer as certified by X" I'd be more sympathetic to X claiming he's lying.
- WrtCdEvrydy 7y agoIt's the same as saying you're a lawyer.
- ghaff 7y agoIn the US, if I say I'm a lawyer, I'm at least implying that I passed the bar in some state (although possibly not in your state). If I just went to law school or if I just read a few books on constitutional law, it wouldn't be normal to describe yourself as a lawyer and you wouldn't be legally allowed to represent yourself as one. People who have even grad degrees in some branch of engineering and have been working in the field for decades. But simply have never had a reason to get a PE? Perfectly reasonable for them to describe themselves as engineers (but not, of course, as PEs).
- kodablah 7y agoMore like saying you're a teacher in this case. While using that title to get around regulations teaching others in certain settings could be a crime, use of the word colloquially while generally giving knowledge to others (especially if you were a teacher where you came from) should never be a crime.
- tptacek 7y agoIn this case, yes. But more generally --- the context of the top comment on this subthread --- no.
- stefan_ 7y agoExcept going slower means you can stop faster, and considerably more so than the linear progression of time. So really the undue burden must be on people going straight through the intersection at the speed limit.
- herodotus 7y agoFrom the journal article: "GHM’s solution to regulate a yellow change interval first appeared in the 1965 ITE Traffic Engineering Handbook, and it has become known as the kinematic equation. However, GHM’s solution is limited to vehicles traveling through level intersections at constant velocity, which does not include vehicle deceleration to execute safe turning maneuvers. This article presents a brief review covering GHM’s original solution and Mats Järlström’s extended kinematic equation which allows for vehicle deceleration and turning maneuvers."
- csours 7y agoBy the time the yellow comes up, you've already made the go/no go decision, and you are scanning for pedestrians and other cars. You don't even see the yellow.
- Swizec 7y agoWe had this problem in Slovenia — cars chasing yellow and thus creating unsafe intersections. Solution? Yellow means stop. If you run a yellow it’s the same as running a red. You can only run a yellow if you’re already in the intersection when the light turns. Despite the groaning and complaints from motorists, pedestrian impacts and high speed intersection collisions have dropped dramatically.
- arcticfox 7y agoThis doesn't work though since you can't instantaneously stop. Imagine you're going 20mph/30kmh and the light turns yellow when you're 1 meter away from entering the intersection. If you try to stop, you'll end up stopped in the middle of the intersection. If your response is "in that case just keep going to clear the intersection"... That's exactly what the existing yellow light law is here that is being debated in the OP.
- Swizec 7y ago> If your response is "in that case just keep going to clear the intersection"... That's exactly what the existing yellow light law is here that is being debated in the OP. That is my response indeed. The problem arises when you treat yellows as "clear the intersection" and you get people stepping on the gas who are 100m from the intersection. This often leads to high speed collisions and pedestrian fatalities because you now have a car that instead of just rolling through a red, is absolutely blasting through. Or at least blasting through a yellow. I see this scenario in SF all the time. Car driving 25mph, sees light turn yellow, speeds up to 50mph to make the light. Could've stopped in time if they treated yellow as "stop". This is obviously dangerous, but totally legal under "you can ride through yellow" laws as the car did in fact clear the intersection before the light turned red.
- californical 7y agoSpeeding is still illegal
- mcv 7y ago
- lancepioch 7y agoWhere I live, as long as you're in the intersection before the light turns red, you're fine.
- rootusrootus 7y agoIn Oregon, where this all took place, that is not the case.
- slavik81 7y agoThe engineering association didn't really fine him for the campaign itself. They were upset that he claimed to be an engineer when making his arguments, despite not being licensed in that state. Even then, they gave him repeated warnings before issuing the fine. In the end, the courts ruled in his favour. As a matter of freedom of expression, anyone can now claim to be an engineer in the state of Oregon.
- sjtindell 7y agoHah, the real world version of an internet argument I see time to time wherein people with engineering certifications are put off by software developers calling themselves engineers.
- slavik81 7y agoTo be fair to Mats, I think he was a fully qualified engineer in Sweden. He was quite unreasonable in insisting on calling himself such in Oregon, but I suppose reasonable men don't change the world.
- qeqeqeqe 7y agoI didn't realize that one's knowledge and skill is a function of location.
- stonogo 7y agoDifferent locations have different engineering codes. This is in part why US states do not recognize each other's PE assignations.
- Mirioron 7y agoI can understand why he couldn't be hired as a licensed engineer because of that, but that doesn't make him not an engineer. He wasn't arguing over something that relies on local standards anyway. A second is a second regardless where you are.
- hinkley 7y agoThat’s extra frustrating because if you think about the dynamics of an intersection, the person going straight through or making a left has a much higher chance of collision than someone making a right. There’s a longer interval before the perpendicular traffic intersects the path of someone turning right, and usually all they have to do is take their foot off of the accelerator, if that.
- Daneel_ 7y agoInteresting. Here in Australia the red light cameras only trigger upon entering the intersection - if you’re already in the intersection then that’s fine. I wonder what the solution they’ll implement will be?
- DrStalker 7y agoSurely the rules in the US would have to be the same; you can't enter the intersection on a red, but if you're already in there you can exit. Yellow is meant to be "only enter if you can't stop safely" not "if you enter now you'll get a fine if you don't speed up"
- TwoBit 7y agoIs Mats arguing that the slow down needed for the right turn could result in you entering the intersection as the light turns red?
- diggernet 7y agoIt varies by state. In California, you can get a ticket if the light is red when you enter the intersection. In Oregon, you can get a ticket if the light is red when you exit the intersection.
- mcv 7y agoThen what are you supposed to do if the light turns red while you're still on the intersection? Linger on the intersection until it turns green again? I realise the purpose of the lights is to keep the intersection clear for the flow of traffic that has the green light, but in real life traffic situations, things rarely work out that way and some common sense is always needed.
- diggernet 7y agoObviously my wording was poor. If the light turns while you are still in the intersection, you've earned a ticket. In both states, you are supposed to not enter the intersection unless you have both time and space to make it through. In Oregon, intersections tend to stay clear more, because people generally follow that rule more. In California, if the light is yellow and traffic is stopped on the other side, many people will enter anyway, knowing they can't go through, just to claim their "turn". And totally block traffic when the light changes. Not so much in Oregon.