The Oregon State Board of Examiners for Engineering and Land Surveying wants residents to know there will be a heavy price to pay for expressing their opinions.

Mats Järlström found that out the hard way when the former technician in the Swedish Air Force offered his opinions about the way red-light cameras operate in the state.

Järlström’s wife received a ticket after turning right on a yellow light in 2013. That sparked his interested in the tinkerer, and he wanted to find out “how exactly yellow lights are timed,” according to the Institute for Justice, which has taken up his case.

Here’s a synopsis of what led up to IJ filing suit today on Järlström’s behalf:

“He did a little Googling and found the formula used to set traffic-light times. The length of time a traffic light stays yellow is based on a relatively straightforward mathematical formula, originally drafted in 1959,” according to IJ.

“Mats realized that the formula is incomplete, because it fails to capture the behavior of drivers making right turns. After developing a modified formula and even corresponding with one of the formula’s original creators, Mats started to reach out to others in the scientific community, government officials, and the media.”

That took him to the state’s Board of Examiners for Engineering and Land Surveying.

The bureaucrats didn’t appreciate his research or his opinions about such things.

So much so, after a two year investigation, the board fined Järlström $500 because he allegedly engaged in the unlicensed “practice of engineering.”

The board objected to Järlström “critiquing” the length of yellow lights and offering his opinions to “members of the public,” according to IJ.

“Criticizing the government’s engineering isn’t a crime; it’s a constitutional right,” said Sam Gedge, the IJ attorney representing Järlström.

“Under the First Amendment, you don’t need to be a licensed lawyer to write an article critical of a Supreme Court decision, you don’t need to be a licensed landscape architect to create a gardening blog, and you don’t need to be a licensed engineer to talk about traffic lights. Whether or not you use math, criticizing the government is a core constitutional right that cannot be hampered by onerous licensing requirements.”

“People should be free to debate any topic, including technical topics like math and traffic lights,” Järlström said in an IJ news release.

“But I was fined simply for speaking out and was told that I can’t truthfully call myself an engineer. The board has not only silenced me, it has silenced many other people who want to talk about technical issues.”

The suit seeks to allow Järlström to freely criticize red-light cameras under the First Amendment.