Licensing
Man responds with study of his own to traffic concerns. State tries to charge him with practicing engineering without a license. Amazing how petty bureaucrats are and, even more amazing, there are laws that enable this type of thing.
In my experience, state licensing of professions only serves as government protection of particular industries. And as a revenue scam err stream. Wouldn’t hurt my feelings to see the states get out of the business. These should be regulated by industry, if at all. I say that as someone with a few certifications.
February 5th, 2011 at 10:52 am
I like the part where if it could have fooled the DOT or the public because of the level of skill even though no one claims to be an engineer then it could be in violation.
Seems there is this idea that quality of work is intimately tied to holding credentials. This is the old secret guild way of doing things. How medieval. Thou shalt not reveal the secrets of engineering to those deemed unworthy.
It also seems very much aligned with Instapudit’s theme of credentialed rather than educated.
February 5th, 2011 at 12:41 pm
Sounds like the bleeding hearts in raleigh all right…
February 5th, 2011 at 12:56 pm
I know someone who knows that stretch of road, and says Raleigh’s traffic patterns aren’t totally screwed, which came as a surprise. But the locals had a point, and now they have a Constitutional one: the cats have now looked at the King.
Not to dump on NC — I drive in hard frost country, and we haven’t learned all our lessons yet — but if you’d ever watched how they build a rural highway, you’d never salaam to their DOT engineers. Plus, their Transportation Sec’y is degreed in anthropology, for the love of God. “The servant of the servants of Science”? He should be tarred and chipped. Then rolled.
I practice engineering every damn day without a license, and my buildings never fall in. “Nearest half-pound on the heavy side” is almost as old as the plumbers’ dictum about left, right, shit and payday. If you have degrees in English and philosophy, there’s no need to worry about anyone else speaking or thinking, right? Don’t answer; you might get sued.
February 5th, 2011 at 1:00 pm
I left NC when I turned 18 and have only gone back to visit relatives every few years. It has become a silly place.
February 5th, 2011 at 1:05 pm
“In my experience, state licensing of professions only serves as government protection of particular industries.”
In general yes. There is no reason to license hair dressers. On the other hand, if an engineer or doctor is incompetent, lots of people die. As such the public has a significant interest in seeing that these jobs are done properly.
Oh and the “state” didn’t do this. The head traffic engineer reported the guy in order to shut him up. He’s a PE’d profession and should have his licensed revoked for that kind of BS.
February 5th, 2011 at 1:45 pm
No worries Comatus. Dump on Nc all you want… A big stinky one if you please…
February 5th, 2011 at 2:42 pm
Funny thing is, most engineers are not licensed. In fact, civil engineers are usually the only ones licensed, and that is only because they design public works.
Last time I checked, crunching numbers for a proposal is not a task requiring licensing (well, in most places anyway, maybe NC is different). The license is only needed to be able to sign off on the final plans.
Hell, I design jumbo jets for a living, and of all the engineers I know, I can count on one hand how many are licensed, and that license is more of a professional status symbol, not a job requirement.
February 5th, 2011 at 4:18 pm
I work in a nuclear power plant. I can count on two hands the number of licensed engineers on staff. I can count on one hand (with fingers leftover) the number of active licenses in the state that the power plant is.
February 5th, 2011 at 5:06 pm
Jeff the Baptist:
Licensing barbers was a throwback to the days when poorly trained barbers were the number two vector for syphilis.
If you get your hair cut by an old school barber, you might notice a nearly fanatical bit of tool disinfecting going on on the counter behind you.
February 5th, 2011 at 11:32 pm
Mad Rocket Scientist is right. There are whole fields of engineering which have no licensing – aerospace, for example.
February 6th, 2011 at 1:07 pm
Actually, it is not just the traffic engineer that is doing this. The head of the DOT, with his PhD in anthropology, threw his full support behind his engineer. So it is the state doing this now.
February 6th, 2011 at 5:01 pm
Been an electronic engineer, never licensed, though there is no conceivable reason I should have been, with what I’ve done. Nobody has ever been in any way endangered by any of my mistakes. Not that I ever made any (lol).
February 6th, 2011 at 5:50 pm
Not active in NC engineering, but such a good story I thought a few here might want to look it up: In 1908 there was a tragically flawed bridge across the St.Lawrence at Quebec City, which killed a lot of workers when it let go during construction. Some time later, re-engineered, the replacement span shifted and killed some more. They saved the girders, and every Canadian structural engineer wears a ring made of that iron.
So, I’m telling that story at a bar, see, and the guy next to me says, “Do you mean like this one here?” He pointed out I was missing a lick: you wear the ring on the pinky of your writing hand, so as you affix your signature to the sign-off papers you drag that bloody iron across your name. Gives you something to think about.
Now that right there is a license that bears, as it were, some weight.
February 6th, 2011 at 5:56 pm
Also lice and other scalp and hair parasites and diseases, and blood borne diseases if they do any shaving with blades.
It’s actually one of the few professions where I think state-level .gov involvement in licensing may be justified, due to the potential for spreading disease throughout the population.
As far as this case goes, though, it would be ridiculous to require a license for what he did – he never even represented himself as an engineer. This is retaliatory and malicious prosecution, nothing more.
February 6th, 2011 at 9:32 pm
As a PE, I am appalled at this kind of bureaucratic idiocy. By this “logic”, giving someone a pair of aspirin would get you prosecuted for praticing medicine w/o a license.
Sounds like the traffic engineer got shown up, and lashed out.
“”I’m not trying to hush him up,” Lacy said.”
Yeah, right. Sounds like this guy’s common sense was removed at birth.
February 7th, 2011 at 1:25 pm
I will say as an aero engineer, we CAN be licensed, but most of us don’t do it because its completely unnecessary for the job we do.
I see a place for licensing and certification in the engineering profession, especially in the area of public works designing structures and such, as it serves as self policing mechanism to fulfill our ethical obligation to protect the public from malpractice on our part. A stamp of approval if you will that the person that holds the license has been sufficiently educated and trained to do the work correctly.
That being said, I don’t believe the state should be in the business of enforcing such a thing in the least. On top of that, for something as trivial as traffic flow analysis, requiring certification is patently ridiculous.