Can this possibly be right?

[cswilson]

Bizarre news report from North Carolina:

"David N. Cox says he was merely exercising his right to petition the government, but a state Department of Transportation official has raised allegations that Cox committed a misdemeanor: practicing engineering without a license.

Cox and his North Raleigh neighbors are lobbying city and state officials to add traffic signals at two intersections as part of a planned widening of Falls of Neuse Road.

After an engineering consultant hired by the city said that the signals were not needed, Cox and the North Raleigh Coalition of Homeowners' Associations responded with a sophisticated analysis of their own.

The eight-page document with maps, diagrams and traffic projections was offered to buttress their contention that signals will be needed at the Falls of Neuse at Coolmore Drive intersection and where the road meets Tabriz Point / Lake Villa Way.

It did not persuade Kevin Lacy, chief traffic engineer for the state DOT, to change his mind about the project. Instead, Lacy called on a state licensing agency, the N.C. Board of Examiners for Engineers and Surveyors, to investigate Cox."

http://www.newsobserver.com/2011/02/03/964781/citizen-activist-grates-on-state.html

I'm not a licensed engineer, or a lawyer, but it seems to me that it can't possibly be a violation unless you actually sign off on some design that requires licensure for actual implementation.

 

[IRstuff]

It depends on how the law in the state is written. In California, one could possibly get a case like this tried, since while the "practice" of engineering requires "professing" to be an engineer or be in responsible charge of engineering work, other portions of the PE Act state that certain engineering activities such as specific types of analyses are construed to be "engineering." So, ostensibly, if you perform an analysis that is specified in the Act as pertaining to civil engineering, you are technically "practicing" civil engineering, even if you do not profess to be one, or offer to perform such work to the general public.

Obviously, one would hope that the case gets tossed out for gross abuse of power and the DOT engineer should be fired for abuse of power and attempted intimidation "under the color."

TTFN

FAQ731-376
Chinese prisoner wins Nobel Peace Prize

 

[cswilson]

IRstuff -- thanks for the response. You say, "if you perform an analysis that is specified in the Act as pertaining to civil engineering, you are technically "practicing" civil engineering." If this were actually a legal violation, wouldn't every civil engineering student be in violation of the law just by doing his school work?

 

[IRstuff]

That's the type of question that's often asked of Supreme Court nominees, and despite Bork's other issues, he was the last nominee to actually provide sufficiently detailed answers to those questions, which was probably what got him in trouble.

Anyways, the totality of the law is clearly intended to deal with people who could be construed as potentially offering services to the public and performing engineering for the public. To that end, a student would never run afoul of such a law, unless he were in the midst of the cited situation, i.e., if he performed the traffic flow analysis.

I think most judges would see this as clear retaliation by a vindictive and petty government official.

TTFN

FAQ731-376
Chinese prisoner wins Nobel Peace Prize

 

[hokie66]

Sounds to me like the DOT engineer got his nose out of joint because the citizens called his bluff, and with some competent research of their own to back up their case. I think it is an overreaction and misuse of position to pressure citizens in this manner. You don't have to be an engineer to count cars.

 

[IRstuff]

Don't forget that the DOT official hired a "consultant" to do the original analysis. My bet is that he has some relationship with the "consultant," and this is to deflect attention from that relationship and whatever under the table deal that was wrought.

Were I involved, I would start looking into the consultant, and I'll bet I'll find that he's probably not licensed in that state anyway, and that the analysis was rigged to support the DOT position.

I've been involved in similar situations in my own town, and once the planning commission has started down a path, all the public meetings are solely for show, and have absolutely little or no impact on the final path. Unless you can show some actual potential for illegality or liability, nothing changes. If you do show some potential for liability, the plan changes just enough to mitigate the liability.

TTFN

FAQ731-376
Chinese prisoner wins Nobel Peace Prize

 

[csd72]

This is law gone mad.

How is this different froma graduate engineer issuing a design to someone for checking. They are not a PE but are carrying out engineering type work.

 

[BigInch]

Theoretically the graduate engineer would be doing that work under the direct supervision of a registered engineer.

Its not law gone mad, but more of an endemic lack of common sense.

 

[francesca]

Both states where I've worked traffic impact assessments and signal warrant analyses had to be stamped, i.e. constituted practicing engineering. To be honest, it was probably a good call because to have let it slide would have invited every opposition group to do their own engineering analysis to call into question the judgment of the engineer doing the "official" analysis.

While there are corrupt relationships between consultants and officials and politicians do push their agendas ahead of actual needs assessments (can anyone say earmarks?), on the whole I think the engineering profession is more reputable than not. Anyone can buy ITE handbooks and the HCM, just like most purchasers of the MUTCD are lawyers, but even the lawyers hire engineers to give their expert witness testimony and enter the analyses into evidence.

 

[msquared48]

My take on this is that due to governmental budget constraints and cuts necessitated by the reduced revenue of the past biennium, Mr Lacey has probably been told by his politically minded uppers not to spend money for this type of improvement, which the state would have to fork out as there is no development or developer involved mto pay for it.

Mike McCann
MMC Engineering
Motto: KISS
Motivation: Don't ask

 

[BigInch]

It may also depend on who is doing the study. In a lot of jurisdictions anything of an engineering nature contracted for by a government agency must be done by professional engineers, whereas a private community group would be free to do their study using their own "in-house expertise", or any city planning advisor.