A group of neighbors asked state highway officials to install traffic signals on a road near their Raleigh, North Carolina suburb. They buttressed their request with an eight-page analysis of the highway complete with maps and traffic projections.
View Larger Map
The state was so impressed that it agreed to install the traffic signals, right? Wrong. Instead, the state’s chief traffic engineer accused the neighbors of “practicing engineering without a license” and asked the state engineering board to investigate and possibly fine the local residents.
None of the neighbors purported to be engineers; none of them earned any money contributing to the report. But, said the state traffic engineer, the report “appears to be engineering-level work,” and obviously, no one should be allowed to do “engineering-level work” unless they are a state-certified engineer. Even the director of the state engineering licensing board agreed that the neighbors were violating the law if their “engineering-quality work” led to anyone being misled about the need for traffic lights.
Needless to say, this attitude puts professional engineers who work for the government on a pedestal: any member of the public who is not a professional engineer who disagrees with them can either be dismissed as not understanding the fine arts of civil engineering or accused of violating the law if they do understand them. Since most professional highway and traffic engineers work either for the government or for consulting firms that get nearly all of their business from the government, this shuts ordinary people out.
An actual physical and nerve diagnosis may possibly divulge the reason time frame cost viagra online back problem. Lacking of physical moments- You like lifts and escalators rather than reaching through the generic levitra robertrobb.com stairs. It is available for sale only at its tadalafil tablets prices official website. That said, he is optimistic on Brazil over the long run, though developing generic cialis an adequate transportation system there could take decades.
The Antiplanner has some experience with this situation. The state of California requires foresters to be registered with the state before they can advise private landowners about timber cutting and reforestation. Although trained as a forester, the Antiplanner never worked for private landowners so never bothered to get such certification.
During the 1980s, my principle job was helping environmental activists understand planning for national forests, including forests in California. I spent a lot of time critiquing Forest Service computer runs and showing how internal agency biases led national forest managers to make bad decisions. I had an excellent track record: about half the forest plans I reviewed were successfully challenged by environmental groups.
Out of frustration, some in the California timber industry accused me of practicing forestry without a license. The accusation was absurd: I wasn’t advising any private landowners; I was responding to the Forest Service’s own invitations for public comment on its plans. Moreover, I doubt that most of the planners whose work I was critiquing were state-certified foresters. I simply ignored them, but if they had pursued their accusations they no doubt could have wasted some of my time even if they were ultimately unsuccessful.
Certain kinds of lawsuits are known as SLAPPs: Strategic Lawsuits Against Public Participation. The North Carolina Department of Transportation and California timber companies were doing something similar: Licensing Boards Against Public Participation (which unfortunately does not make a pronounceable acronym). Under federal law, state highway agencies are required to encourage public involvement in planning of any state roads that receive federal funding, but there is no doubt that this action, even if it is not successful, will have a chilling effect on both this neighborhood and others who may want to get involved in such planning.
There may be a case for licensing boards on the grounds of public safety (although often there is not). You wouldn’t want someone who is unqualified designing a bridge that might be used by millions of people. But using these boards to discourage public involvement is unconscionable, and North Carolina’s director of traffic engineering should be formally disciplined for attempting to do so.
How can the public remove a public official like that who makes himself an enemy of the people? What a crazy mess!
Most likely Mr Lacy is an old-school injuneer ready to retire soon, and feels threatened by someone on his turf. A little more publicity and a few more quotes from him finding sunlight, and the public ought to see the world has passed him by and he should be managing people and delegating such things.
DS
This North Carolina incident is silly and if no one was paid for the engineering work, and no one represented that it was a professional engineer, then I doubt there can be any violation. Even if there was payment without representation as a professional engineer, then I doubt there can be a violation for petitioning the government with the information. If it was signed by someone who represented themselves as a professional engineer, then it would be an interesting case.
It is sort of funny how easy it is for a non-expert to duplicate the work of an expert in many professional fields. Sure they don’t know all the subtleties, but if you read a dozen engineering reports, legal briefs, medical diagnoses, biological opinion, etc., an intelligent person spending time on research can do a good job of duplicating the effort. That is one reason why professionals fight hard to keep licensing boards.
I do take issue with the Antiplanner comparing such an action by a government agency to anything similar by a private entity. Private entities are entitled to assert their rights in court while government agencies have wholly different obligations about public input.
I think the whole concept about SLAPPs (Strategic Lawsuits Against Public Participation) is just one interest group screaming very loud when their opponents use their own tactics against them. Environmental organizations freely acknowledge that they use lawsuits, appeals, and other legal tactics to harass, delay and impose costs on their opponents. There is nothing wrong with their opponents using the same tactics on environmental organizations. That has become the American way.
This is what happens when people realize that the whole “planning” scam is a lot more simple than we are made to believe by the lofty language used by the planners, and the million dollar studies they commission. I completely think that this episode is an example of a over-reacting bunch of planners trying to set a precedent and solidify their iron grip over anything to do with planning.
Now, I’m not saying that non-certified people be let loose to try out their “planning skills”. But that’s not what’s going on here. These people merely made a suggestion. Nowhere did they imply they were professional engineers. No doubt they prepared a professional-looking report with all the right lingo, and it obviously rubbed someone the wrong way.
On the downside – the reason for the regulations is to stop everyone have a bash at engineering. If the experts brought in said that the signals were not necessary, and the residents think that the signals are necessary, then I suspect that the residents are wrong.
http://www.todaysengineer.org/2010/Apr/licensure.asp
On the upside – someone’s got a good career ahead of them.
Once again, professional licensing is incumbent protection.
Once again, professional licensing is incumbent protection.
F yeah, man! 5 minutes on The Google and any rational utility maximizing agent can build their own parking garage or freeway interchange dood!
No need for hasty generaliation fallacies, folks. This is likely simply palin old fashioned ego, from an old school injuneer (which makes it worse).
DS
Reflexive leftist comment of the day courtesy of FrancisKing.
No one tried to have a “bash” at engineering. They wanted traffic lights on that street and tried to convince the state with a well-presented argument. They didn’t claim to be engineers or started taking out bids on the project. Apparently, the state engineer felt threatened by the professionalism of the report, not its conclusions.
The Google and any rational utility maximizing agent can build their own parking garage or freeway interchange dood!
Anyone with a basic grasp of physics and geometry and can design a standard freeway interchange or parking garage. Infrastructure was built (and built effectively) prior to the formation of the American Society of Civil Engineers. What has changed since?
Your sarcasm notwithstanding (I’ll ignore that part), this article illustrates perfectly the silliness of occupational licensure. There are plenty of cracks in the armor, especially in the field of traffic engineering. It just took one overly-sensitive fellow to make an absurd threat in response to a citizen initiative and put this charade on public display.
State-mandated professional licensure is incumbent protection, pure and simple. There are, of course fields that voluntarily use licensure as a way to differentiate their service. The mechanic that I frequently bring my car to does this, for example. However, I do not see them lobbying our Legislature in order to mandate that their competitors do the same. They don’t need to.
By the way, I had to laugh at the part of the article where the state engineer accused the citizens of “practicing engineering without a license” on the grounds that they produced “engineering-level work” (without all the requisite and costly training, no less). Who else would feel threatened by this?
Of course, I’m sure there are other professions that have considered it. After all stuff like this happens all the time. I might feel threatened too if the overpriced class project I and my consulting firm produced (and was paid hundreds of thousands of dollars for) was now being given away for free by “amateurs”.
Infrastructure was built (and built effectively) prior to the formation of the American Society of Civil Engineers. What has changed since?
Internal combustion engines, concrete for roads, average speed of transport, discarding the buggy whip…
Nonetheless, absurd claims that basic physics is adequate to solve geotechnical problems aside, I’m not defending old-school arrogant injuneers. Or arrogant injuneers in general.
But a stamp is one of the main ways the legal system determines competence and accountability. Two or three screw-ups with your stamp on it and you aren’t screwing up any more. Especially in areas of seismicity, high shrink-swell clays, solifluction, wind load, local material subject to differential compaction/expansion, and the like.
DS
Construction of a bridge is overwhelmingly physics. Whether a traffic light should be placed in a particular intersection is overwhelmingly political. The rest pretty much writes itself….
Oh, the Wall Street Journal has an article today on professional licensing, including “Texas, for instance, requires hair-salon “shampoo specialists” to take 150 hours of classes, 100 of them on the “theory and practice” of shampooing, before they can sit for a licensing exam. ”
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748703445904576118030935929752.html?mod=WSJ_hp_LEFTWhatsNewsCollection
Whether a traffic light should be placed in a particular intersection is overwhelmingly political. The rest pretty much writes itself….
Actually, it is physics as well: wrt momentum, friction, centripetal force, angle of inclination. That is: is traffic going too fast to stop for a kid in the street or a turning car? That’s a wide-open road and it is basic psychology that the foot goes down on those sorts of roads. It is political in a sense that you need access, apparently, in that place to get safety measures emplaced.
DS
Dan,
How many of the stop signs, traffic signals, speed bumps, crosswalks, etc. in your neighborhood are based on physics and how many are based on politics? As I said, it is overwhelming.
Federal interstates are designed by engineers. Local roads are governed by local politics.
Agree with Borealis. If stop signs, bumps, and lights weren’t largely political decisions, there wouldn’t be hundreds of neighborhood organizations lobbying for them.
But I think this particular case might have been an exception. They apparently made a good case for the traffic lights. Stepped on some million-dollar-a-study consultant’s toes, no doubt.
Speaking as an Engineering Designer, this is simply one of the most outrageous things I have ever seen or heard of in my profession.
The thing is, much of the design work in civil engineering outside of difficult structural engineering problems and crane pick calculations is performed by CAD Technicians and Engineering Designers (non licenesed engineers, “Engineers in Training”, etc.) under the supposed supervision of licensed engineers who generally act as the managers of projects instead of performing any actual engineering. The licensed managers give a cursory review of most documents they stamp, if any at all, and the mistakes and issues in the documents are covered up during construction by the catch all “Errors and Omissions” claims put forth by the contractor provided nobody dies.
Since most engineering work is being done by non-engineers, I fail to see the problem with local citzens performing their own analysis of a problem and suggesting engineering solutions to the relevant government officials.
Those officials will install the traffic light in the end, but only after enough people die to satisfy their cost-benefit analysis. I say that because my relatives in Indana were told exactly that about a dangerous interchange on US 6 on the Bremen Bypass when complaints were made by the local residents. Yes, you heard that right. Not enough people had died at the intersection yet to justify signalization. At the time, they were told 6 more deaths had to occur.
How many of the stop signs, traffic signals, speed bumps, crosswalks, etc. in your neighborhood are based on physics and how many are based on politics? As I said, it is overwhelming.
Federal interstates are designed by engineers. Local roads are governed by local politics.
Whatever makes you feel good I guess. Apparently safety is political now and has nothing to do with sight lines out of curves or stopping distance on wet slopes or the tendency of drivers to go faster on wide, open straight roads.
Larn sumpin new ever’ day.
DS
What law of physics teaches “tendency of drivers to go faster on wide, open straight roads”?
What law of physics applies to “Not enough people had died at the intersection yet to justify signalization. At the time, they were told 6 more deaths had to occur.”
Gee, I think that might be overwhelmingly politics, not physics. Where did I read or write that before?
I was actually about to say that I respected Dan’s position and his honesty in this case, until he started using his patented impression of a hick.
Man. Late to the party again. Unlike people who post here, I don’t have time at work to discuss such vital issues. Plus I’m on the government dime and don’t want to waste taxpayer money.
Speaking of work, mine is one requiring a state license. I paid tens of thousands of dollars jumping through hoops to get mine. God forbid someone teach without sitting through expensive and inane classes. One of my instructors forced me to watch “The Breakfast Club”, which cost me about $200. That shore made me a better teacher.
Now I gotta take $500 in tests AGAIN in a new state to prove that my I learned something from my undergrad program. Never mind my 3.8 GPA and my stellar portfolio. Gotta pay up and sit down and take these fu©king tests that serve no real purpose except to line the pockets of the testing companies. There’s a cozy relationship: state governments and testing companies.
Licensure means fu©k all in teaching. Maybe it’s different in engineering. I have my doubts.
What law of physics teaches “tendency of drivers to go faster on wide, open straight roads�
I stated above that it was psychology that did this. Surely you “forgot” I wrote it.
Gee, I think that might be overwhelmingly politics, not physics. Where did I read or write that before?
The decision not to signalize is politics. The conditions that make signalization necessary are defined by physics (and psych with the speed bit).
—————-
Lastly, I reiterate what I have asserted several times on this site: this sort of subdivision road design makes traffic worse. Topography is a contributor as well, but this is exactly the outcome we expect when we get such design.
DS
“…this sort of subdivision road design makes traffic worse.”
The forgotten topic. Maybe the neighbors should be advocating for connectivity amongst their isolated pods of humanity. The impact on the arterial in question would be great. Of course this would mean that people would actually drive through their neighborhood, and heaven forbid “others” use “their” roads.
It’s easier to say “traffic on the big road is bad,” than admit to the correlation to virtually no traffic on all the other roads.
Here is a video news story with the guy accused of practicing engineering without a license….
http://ncguns.blogspot.com/2011/02/practicing-engineering-without-license.html
And a story in the [Raleigh, N.C.] News-Observer:
DOT engineer gets national scorn