If you ever find yourself in an argument with the North Carolina Department of Transportation, be very careful you don't argue your points too well:

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.

Cox says Lacy is trying to squelch dissent.

"All we ever tried to do was express our view about this," said Cox, a computer scientist. "We never expected something like this. We think it's wrong. We're just trying to make our neighborhood safe."

Lacy said his complaint "was not an accusation" against Cox.

"I'm not trying to hush him up," Lacy said.

Cox has not been accused of claiming that he is an engineer. But Lacy says he filed the complaint because the report "appears to be engineering-level work" by someone who is not licensed as a professional engineer.