Practicing without a license

Design a doghouse, go to jail.

John

Quick summary: Guy and his neighbors think that a street widening will require adding traffic lights, presents "sophisticated analysis" arguing this case, that disagrees with DOT's own engineer who says traffic lights aren't necessary. DOT engineer responds by claiming the guy has committed a misdemeanor, "Practicing engineering without a license."

Nice quote: "...there is a potential for violation if DOT and the public were misled by "engineering-quality work"- even if the authors did not claim to be engineers."

Wow. There's something very wrong going on at the North Carolina DOT!

---Joel

Strikes me that a licensed engineer educated/experienced primarily in another discipline might be at real risk.

It strikes me that anyone answering questions in this group who's not a PE might be at real risk.

I can see the value of the whole PE thing -- but it can go over the edge into absurdity pretty damned easily.

They should take the report and pay a PE to review and sign off on it and re-submit. The goobers have already said it is good quality work.

tm

--- In my opinion, the DOT's chief traffic engineer, Lacy, is miffed because the quality of Cox's work is superior and is capable of causing Cox's position to have to be defended, something petty tyrants can't stand.

Of course Lacy would have loved for Cox's work to have been slipshod, in which case he could easily have dismissed it as being unimportant, but no, he's confronted by someone who knows what he's talking about, and makes him feel threatened.

In retaliation, then, Lacy goes after the source of the threat, intending to vilify him with what are, in truth, nonsense accusations.

This is really nothing more than an outrageous example of a government employee trying to entice government to deny a citizen his right to free speech.

Moreover, since Cox wasn't trying to gain monetarily from the sale of his work and since he presented his work to an engineer in the public sector, for evaluation, the charge of pretending to be an engineer by virtue of being capable of doing engineering quality work is ridiculous.

A suitable conclusion to this matter would be, in my opinion, that any investigation of Cox be dropped, that his work be given an evaluation by a neutral party competent in the relevant discipline, and that Lacy be given disciplinary action in the form of a couple of days off without pay and a note in his file.

--- JF

A complaint of professional misconduct perhaps could be entered against him, although NC rules appear to only specifically rule out malicious behavior towards fellow engineers and land surveyors.

License number 024450:

Truly sad.

Time to get out the Glocks. ...Jim Thompson

-- | James E.Thompson, CTO | mens | | Analog Innovations, Inc. | et | | Analog/Mixed-Signal ASIC's and Discrete Systems | manus | | Phoenix, Arizona 85048 Skype: Contacts Only | | | Voice:(480)460-2350 Fax: Available upon request | Brass Rat | | E-mail Icon at

Remember: Once you go over the hill, you pick up speed

Help a poor old English engineer. We don't need a licence to engineer. Is this a NC thing or does it apply to the whole USA?

Well, unless that part of the USA has some very strange laws indeed (which is of course possible), the charge of practicing engineering without a licence will be laughed out of court.

Sylvia.

require

You need a professional engineering license to offer engineering services for buildings and bridges and such -- i.e., you aren't supposed to specify the wire size for a 500 horsepower motor unless you've got a professional engineer's license.

I think you have the same thing over there, but I don't know what it's called (Registered Engineer? Chartered Engineer?)

Engineering boards sometimes take that and run a bit too far with it -- there was a case in Oregon a few years ago where they cracked down on some maid service for calling themselves "cleaning engineers" or some such.

require

were

be

A friend of mine allowed as how the State Board of Technical Registration didn't have any right to say whether he could call himself an architect, or not (he is degreed).

He told them to go copulate themselves, and got away with it ;-) ...Jim Thompson

Not, DOT is being SOP bureaucritters; but the licensing board statements send a shiver down my spine. The chairman better learn the law which I bet is not what he thinks.

chdb.asp?024450- Hide quoted text -

What we should complain about is the asshole who scribed that web site. So, I click the link above, and here's what I get:

Internet Explorer cannot open the Internet site

Of course, I can clearly see most of the web site in the background (behind this stupid Windows error message). I click OK (the only option), and Windows then displays a totally blank screen with a canned message asking me if I would like for it to diagnose my "connection" problem.

Um... No. If I had a connection problem, I wouldn't be seeing the web site in the background now would I? More to the point, if I had a connection problem, I probably wouldn't be able to click the "back" button and return to SED.

I'm sure it's just some java-script advertising junk that absolutely DEMANDS highest priority, even if that means folks can't view (let alone read), the article itself. American capitalism at its finest!!

But back to the North Carolina thing, I do recall reading that you could not name your business or company .... anything "engineering" unless you actually had PE's on staff. Not sure if that rule is still around.

Hilarious!

It is a case of classic corruption by hired (incompentent) civil servants. The DOT minion who complained was upset because I suspect the work done by the public was much better than his (probably largly pencil whipped, and likely substandard) work.

Lacy should be given a couple of thousand days off without pay, and his file shredded. And blocked from receiving unemployment benefits too...

I think it is more a problem with US lawyers. Engineering quality work stands on its merits - complaining that the person wasn't qualified to do it has no bearing on whether or not the analysis is correct.

Actually you do if you are engineering large scale stuff mechanical, production, chemical and civil engineering all have their own UK institutions and/or want to work internationally. IEE is (now was) one of the UK's electronics engineering institutions - but they have rebranded yet again to "Improve the public image of engineering"

Chartered Engineer, and EurIng in Europe. You get a nice registration number and tax deductible annual fees as well as a magazine and in the case of my professional body some useful discounts on PII, training and software. Also monthly meetings and specialist groups if you go to them. You can buy an optional certificate to hang on the wall if you are into that sort of thing.

The Royal Society for Chemistry has by far the best PR department of the UK professional science and engineering institutions. They came up with the "Hang on a minute lads - I have a great idea" challenge from the end of the original "Italian Job" film. Strictly a physics problem to move the gold back up the bus without falling of the edge of a cliff.

Pity the IOP didn't think of it :(

In the UK *all* engineering has the unfortunate public image of a grease monkey covered in oil and grime with a spanner under some rust bucket car. That is why all the kids want to do "Meeja Studdis" (sic).

Engineer as a strict professional term in the UK isn't worth the effort of protecting. Someone signing off designs for safety critical kit, buildings or bridges had better have the right paper qualifications though - you really don't want them falling down.

Germany and Japan have a much higher respect for their engineers and scientists and correspondingly stronger manufacturing based economies. We have far too many MBAs and bean counters in senior positions and it creates the problems that JL is describing in a parallel thread.

Regards, Martin Brown

Speaking as an Engineering school graduate in a field that does not normally have EIT (engineering in training) or PE/LPE (professional engineer, licensed professional engineer) this business is a load of crap and intimidation that should get laughed out of court.

Unless and until you misrepresent yourself as an EIT/PE/LPE they haven't got a leg to stand on, no matter what work you do. If you were a PE in EE and did a traffic study, I doubt you'd be putting your EE seal on the thing, and if you did, you still wouldn't be claiming to be a traffic (probably civil) engineer. This case didn't even go to that level. If you took the job on for money there might be an issue.

I make personal use of a transit and have Breed and Hosmer's delightful (if not remotely the recent edition) books - and so long as I don't claim to be a licensed surveyor or civil engineer, there ain't a damn thing anyone can do about it, because I'm not misrepresenting myself or selling my services to anyone. Those folks all use total stations and/or differential GPS now anyway (I've had the transit on long-term loan for going on 15 years now, and don't expect to ever have the guy I borrowed it from ask for it back, though I remind him occasionally that I have it. He wasn't using it anymore.)

If this isn't laughed out of court, the court is corrupt.