[rmxt]

Completely 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]

Fining 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_wisd...

[anigbrowl]

They 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.

[gtirloni]

I'm not an expert in Barry Schwartz but I think you're​ just making his argument stronger.

Focusing on the usage of the term "engineer" when what was in discussion was the traffic lights, which was much important, shows such a shortsightness. Of course, everybody was just doing their job, just following the rules.

[setr]

Its more of you shouldn't give legal advice, and let people assume you are a lawyer, if you are not a lawyer.

Presumably, if he prefixed this with IANAE, there would be no issue. Well, in this case, a traffic engineer.

But essentially he was defining himself to have greater authority over the subject matter than he actually had, which while here is not really problematic, the act itself often can be.

[anigbrowl]

You are being played.

Jarlstrom was informed that he wasn't entitled to hold himself out as an engineer and agreed not to do so. The reasons not to do that are valid, for the simple reason that it pretends to a level of expertise he does not have, when trying to influence how public infrastructure is run.

I have said many times that Jarlstrom could simply have pitched his idea without claiming to be an engineer. Why didn't he? Probably because people did not listen to him as readily if he did not use that title.

what was in discussion was the traffic lights, which was much important

Why is it so important? Only because Jarlstrom says it is and claims that his solution is world-changing. But this is sales talk. If his solution is really that good, then he should be happy to present it as an amateur, without pretensions to qualifications he does not hold.

His proposal sounds OK, but I know nothing of traffic engineering and can't really evaluate it. Neither, I suspect can anyone else except the one person who posted that they are a licensed professional traffic engineer. It's unclear what, if any, assertions Jarlstrom is making about the benefits of implementing his scheme. Will it save any lives or reduce the number of accidents? No idea. All we have is this: '"hen you make a turn you slow down but that's not accounted for in their solution, so people are getting caught in red light cameras for making safe turns.'

OK, I understand he is not crazy about red light tickets because his wife got one when driving around their hometown, but so what? What is so overwhelmingly urgent about this that the Board should make it heir priority? Why doesn't Jarlstrom have the patience to push his idea as a regular driver without making false claims to qualifications he does not in fact possess? I must reiterate that I have absolutely no problem whatsoever with his amateur traffic engineering endeavours...if he would have clearly labeled them as such.

but he is calling himself an engineer to leverage social credibility that attaches to that professional term. I can share my legal opinions with you all day but no matter how well-formed those opinions are it doesn't alter the fact that I am not qualified to practice law, so the only person I could legally represent in court in myself. It would be dishonest of me to label myself as a lawyer, because people who didn't know any better would easily believe me and might create all sorts of problems for themselves by relying on that false belief.

What's going on here is that you heard a sympathetic story about something you think you understand well - who doesn't understand traffic lights, they are so familiar - with an underdog pitted against the image of a large unresponsive bureaucracy. And that is the point at which pany people in this thread have stopped thinking. Look across the thread, there are even people insisting that Jarlstrom is in fact a licensed engineer, repeatedly, based on absolutely no evidence whatsoever! People are literally inventing facts to uphold their preferred version of the story.

I am a bit depressed to see how easily people are taken in, and abandon reason in favor of their emotional reaction to a piece of obscure public policy. I have no opinion on the right length of traffic light periods (because I don't drive, thank heavens), and I would have no objection to people evaluating Jarlstrom's proposal and adopting it worldwide. But he chose to go about advancing his proposal in a way that he knew would cause problems, and now he is claiming to be a victim after doing something that he knew in advance would create such a problem.

His legal case will go nowhere because he chose to antagonize the very people who were best-positioned to assist him, for no other reason than to inflate his own ego. It would be wise to ask yourself why the story excluded so many important details about the sequence of events, and perhaps to reread pg's famous Submarine essay: http://www.paulgraham.com/submarine.html

[gtirloni]

I couldn't care less if he's a licensed engineer or not, if he was calling himself one or not...

I do care whether the traffic lights need fixing, what kind of fixing, if my local traffic lights suffer from the same issue and how it was troubleshooted.

All the rest of this discussion is just wasting everybody's time. And it is only happening because someone didn't have the good judgment to not fine someone who was obviously interested in the collective well being (initially motivated by personal reasons? who cares?).

All rules followed to the letter and society is losing.

[vkou]

You should. If I start calling myself an engineer, and start making noise, about how some bridge or other needs to be retrofitted right this minute... My opinion on the matter is not as valid as that of an actual engineer. And you should probably not conclude that the bridge needs retorfitting, solely on my testimony.

It's like a product manager, with no understanding of how software is built, coming to your daily standup, and telling everyone about what compiler flags they should be using. All the while, calling themselves a programmer/software engineer. If your company isn't insane, it should censure him for that - especially if he said he'll stop doing it.

[bbakkd]

> Jarlstrom was informed that he wasn't entitled to hold himself out as an engineer and agreed not to do so. The reasons not to do that are valid, for the simple reason that it pretends to a level of expertise he does not have, when trying to influence how public infrastructure is run.

Actually, from the documents provided, he initially made the claim that he held an engineering degree in electronics, which is hardly holding himself out as a registered engineer in the state of Oregon. In a later email he commented to the board that he was an excellent engineer, which may in fact be the case given that he held a degree in engineering. Again, there is no attempt to misrepresent himself as licensed in Oregon.

The first incident is a huge stretch to say he was attempting to mislead the public that he was a registered professional engineer. In fact, if he was a Swedish engineer, regardless of whether they regulate the industry or not, it is a factual statement to say he is a Swedish engineer and is not an attempt to make false claims of his credentials. The are arguing that he cannot speak of his occupation in another country and perform engineering calculations in the state of Oregon. That is clearly a violation of his free speech.

The second statement that he was an excellent engineer is a little more vague, but it is also a factual statement that he is an engineer. He does not ever claim to be a registered professional engineer in the state of Oregon and it is a valid argument that they cannot prevent him from stating his background in engineering.

If he was a doctor in Sweden, it would be perfectly if he still called himself a doctor in Oregon without implying that he was licensed to practice medicine. He would in fact be, after all, a doctor. Essentially what they are doing is equating the performing of engineering calculations (to back up his theory and present to actual engineers) with the practice of medicine. They are attempting to bolster that with two weak (but possibly valid) claims that he was representing himself as a registered professional engineer in Oregon in the process.

The fact is that the laws in this case are vague enough that they could be used to keep someone quiet for whatever reason--perhaps they didn't like the media making them look bad. Ultimately, that would be up to a judge to decide if they are in fact infringing on his first amendment rights.

> I am a bit depressed to see how easily people are taken in, and abandon reason in favor of their emotional reaction to a piece of obscure public policy

I don't see how, all the documents are right there in the article. And seriously, I have read well over thirty condescending comments from you in this thread with your fake intellectualism and it is a bit much. But hey, why don't you refer me to an essay or something.

[chrismcb]

Except he didn't use it in violation of the law. He wasn't performing professional work, nor was he designing something for construction or any of the other defintions of "practicing engineering"