[HN Gopher] Show HN: Report idling vehicles in NYC (and get a cu...
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Show HN: Report idling vehicles in NYC (and get a cut of the fines)
with AI
New York City has this cool program that lets anyone report idling
commercial vehicles and get a large cut of the fines [1]. It's been
in the news recently [2]. I've filed a few reports, and I found
the process frustrating and error-prone. The forms are fiddly,
there's way too much information that needs to be copied down from
the video by hand, you have to use a third-party app to take a
timestamped video and a different app to compress it before
uploading, and approximately none of it can be done on your phone
-- the device you probably used to record your video in the first
place. I built Idle Reporter to make filing complaints into a
five-minute process that you can do entirely from your phone. Idle
Reporter uses AI to automatically extract all the required
information and screenshots from the video and fill out the form
for you. It compresses your video, adds the required screenshots,
and uploads the whole thing to DEP. All you have to do is log in,
give it a final check, and submit. The AI features cost me money
to run, so I put those behind a subscription ($5.99/month, which
can pay for itself after a single report). There's a one-week free
trial so you can test it out. All the other features -- including a
fully-featured timestamp camera, which other apps charge for, and
an editor for filling out the forms manually and submitting in a
single step -- will be free forever, as a service to the community.
The app is iOS-only for now -- part of this was an exercise in
learning SwiftUI in my spare time. Check it out on the App Store
and let me know what you think! [1]:
https://www.nyc.gov/site/dep/environment/idling-citizens-air...
[2]: https://www.cbsnews.com/news/new-york-city-idling-law-
report...
Author : rafram
Score : 110 points
Date : 2025-06-22 17:06 UTC (5 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (apps.apple.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (apps.apple.com)
| rahimnathwani wrote:
| I love that you and others are making it easier for the public to
| report issues and violations.
|
| Another example in the same vein (but no financial reward for
| reporting!) is the Solve SF app:
|
| https://www.solvesf.com/
| rafram wrote:
| Thank you!
| elektor wrote:
| Now this is a practical use of AI, kudos!
| rafram wrote:
| Thank you!
| hiAndrewQuinn wrote:
| This is a phenomenal application of how fine-based bounties can
| be used to rapidly improve compliance with the law. Incredible
| work. I would absolutely use this if I lived in NYC; I'll
| recommend it to my friends there.
| ffsm8 wrote:
| I wish it was was more common around the world. Not just with
| parking though, but everything in the context of cars.
|
| Like letting the police install a permanent speed trap on your
| property or even pay for the privilege of them doing so. I'd
| bet that'd curb a lot of speeding in short order
| hiAndrewQuinn wrote:
| There's no need for violence. In fact, the capital outlay
| would be inefficient.
|
| If you want to curb speeding, the solution looks much the
| same: Pay reporters some portion of the fines collected from
| the speeder. You will very quickly see a cottage industry of
| Internet connected dashcams and on-board AI solutions spring
| up, because it's practically free money if you drive safely
| yourself for long enough. Pretty soon nobody will be
| speeding, simply because you never know who or what is
| watching.
|
| This is a set of economic-legal policies I've been writing
| about here and there for a long time. It's great stuff.
| gametorch wrote:
| Sounds like the antithesis of freedom.
|
| What a miserable society that would be to live in.
| hiAndrewQuinn wrote:
| You have it backwards. A perfect detection rate for crime
| makes it much more important that we define
| conservatively what we even consider to be a crime in the
| first place, and then what kind of punishment we levy
| upon it.
|
| You also have it backwards because it already reliably
| makes society better for you. Take the case of Biogen
| employee Michael Bawduniak, who spent seven years
| documenting covert payments that steered doctors toward
| Biogen's multiple-sclerosis drugs illegally. When the
| United States Department of Justice settled the case for
| $900 million in 2022, Bawduniak received roughly $266
| million, or about 30% of the federal proceeds, under the
| False Claims Act. It's a very similar mechanism, and
| anyone you may know who suffers from multiple sclerosis
| has likely had their treatment options materially
| improved thanks to Bawduniak's actions. But those kinds
| of actions only happen when you have the right mechanisms
| in place, to reward people who do the right thing.
| gametorch wrote:
| I think your example is really interesting and I think
| you do have a point.
|
| But culturally speaking, America is only fine with
| applying this idea to the upper-upper class, like
| billionaires and hedge fund managers.
|
| It is absolutely unacceptable to apply surveillance tech
| to arbitrary middle class citizens. Full stop.
|
| I will absolutely speak up to ensure this value is upheld
| in American society.
|
| Edit: Thought about this more and I think Americans have
| almost no mercy for _businesses_ but extreme mercy for
| the average citizen. It 's not cool to snitch on the
| average citizen for a crime that involves citations and
| fines. It is totally cool to do that to a business.
| bcyn wrote:
| Why? How do you draw the line between people who deserve
| to be "surveilled" (if you can even call it that in this
| case...) vs. people who don't?
|
| You are entitled to your opinion of course but it just
| seems extremely arbitrary.
| gametorch wrote:
| I don't have a good, rational answer.
|
| I think the idea is vaguely that the upper-upper class
| statistically must've done something wrong or have the
| power to cause extreme harm, therefore it's okay to
| snitch on them but not your regular Joe.
|
| I'm just espousing the standard American middle class
| views about freedom here. Not trying to argue they are
| sound or rational.
| hiAndrewQuinn wrote:
| Well, I disagree, but I pick my battles carefully and
| would never risk turning someone against the False Claims
| Act to win such a small victory. Point conceded.
| renewiltord wrote:
| Modern people are so risk averse. Back in the day we
| would rob trains. These days society is the equivalent of
| a HOA - freedom is fast forgotten and trains go mostly
| unmolested except through that one bastion of liberty:
| Los Angeles. Society is full of tattletales and stool
| pigeons. A criminal society is a free society. Order is
| antithetical to expression.
| ffsm8 wrote:
| Uh, did someone advocate for violence?
| hiAndrewQuinn wrote:
| A speed trap is a kind of violence, yes. Have you ever
| hit one of those things at high speed before? Ouch.
|
| EDIT: I've been away from the States for too long. I was
| indeed thinking about speed _bumps_ , not traps. Traps
| are cameras, and they therefore get a thumbs up from me
| in the beautiful bounties-on-everything-we-care-about
| future.
| ffsm8 wrote:
| a speed trap is a device that measures the speed of cars
| that drive by it. It's usually on the sidewalk or (as I
| proposed here) in a property adjacent to the street.
| You're not supposed to hit them.
|
| Are you talking about speed bumps?
| hiAndrewQuinn wrote:
| I am! Mea maxima culpa. Yes, I agree with you.
| pimlottc wrote:
| "More Dunkin"? Is that an auto correct type for "more
| common"?
| ffsm8 wrote:
| Oof, yes. I edited it
| mhuffman wrote:
| >This is a phenomenal application of how fine-based bounties
| can be used to rapidly improve compliance with the law.
|
| This type of thing can get out of hand quickly. Without me
| giving controversial examples, just imagine for yourself the
| types of things that different states can make a crime, add a
| fine, then offer to give other citizens part or all of that
| fine if they turn in others. After that, think of how
| unscrupulous businesses could use it against competition.
| renewiltord wrote:
| Yeah, like the ADA for example. We should not have started
| down that slippery slope. Repeal the ADA!
| hiAndrewQuinn wrote:
| Compliance with the law is a separate issue from the contents
| of the law. If switching to a fine-based bounty system like
| this suddenly causes an uproar over a given law, then I
| submit the proper thing is to look over that law and perhaps
| tear it down. Any "law" that people put up with because it
| isn't enforced 9 times out of 10 is little more than a tax
| upon those too honest to get away with it.
|
| As for businesses using it against one another in
| competition: Same deal, I think that's an excellent thing. If
| this idling law causes NYC businesses to shift en masse to
| faster loading and unloading practices because their
| competitors are watching them like hawks, I don't think
| that's a bad thing.
| mhuffman wrote:
| >Compliance with the law is a separate issue from the
| contents of the law.
|
| Agree. More of my thought is what happens when everyone is
| incentivized with money to spy on everyone else? How can
| you misuse this as a government? How can unscrupulous
| businesses misuse this?
|
| >If switching to a fine-based bounty system like this
| suddenly causes an uproar over a given law, then I submit
| the proper thing is to look over that law and perhaps tear
| it down.
|
| I would submit that there is the danger that people might
| want to keep a bad law if they continue to make money by
| snitching. In fact, money is the exact wrong incentive for
| this sort of thing.
|
| >Any "law" that people put up with because it isn't
| enforced 9 times out of 10 is little more than a tax upon
| those too honest to get away with it.
|
| Think a little harder and see if you can imagine why a law
| that isn't strongly enforced still might exist.
| hiAndrewQuinn wrote:
| >[P]eople might want to keep a bad law if they continue
| to make money by snitching. In fact, money is the exact
| wrong incentive for this sort of thing.
|
| I've said elsewhere the optimal mechanism here is for
| that money to be paid to the snitcher, from the person
| who is being turned in. This would lead us to assume that
| for most crimes of a personal nature, we would have about
| as many people losing money due to the law as making
| money due to it, and so the effect cancels out.
|
| In situations where many more people make money and only
| a select few are losing big, well... Somehow I feel like
| that's usually for the best anyway. See my other comments
| on eg the runaway success of the False Claims Act. Or
| just consider the class action lawsuit and whether you
| think it fills a valuable role in society.
|
| >Think a little harder and see if you can imagine why a
| law that isn't strongly enforced still might exist.
|
| Thanks for letting me pick the reason, that's very
| thoughtful of you. Obviously it's because said law being
| strongly enforced would cause such a public backlash that
| it would quickly get repealed in its entirety, and thus
| further erode the monopoly on violence the state holds
| over its citizenry. Cops then have fewer _en passants_
| they can pull when they don 't follow procedure, etc etc.
| I'm glad we're in agreement on this.
| mhuffman wrote:
| >I've said elsewhere the optimal mechanism here is for
| that money to be paid to the snitcher, from the person
| who is being turned in.
|
| In some cases, which seem like a good idea like corporate
| malfeasance whistleblowers or government grift
| whistleblowers. This is because the people paid by our
| tax dollars would be at a disadvantage compared to an
| insider in the company. In others, you could see the
| direction it must go.
|
| >Thanks for letting me pick the reason, that's very
| thoughtful of you.
|
| Cheers!
|
| >Obviously it's because said law being strongly enforced
| would cause such a public backlash that it would quickly
| get repealed in its entirety, and thus further erode the
| monopoly on violence the state holds over its citizenry.
| Cops then have fewer en passants they can pull when they
| don't follow procedure, etc etc. I'm glad we're in
| agreement on this.
|
| There might very well be laws like that. However, let me
| offer a non-controversial and obvious one. Speed limits.
| Many places have 65mph listed as a speed limit. Everyone
| knows you are not allowed to go faster. However very few
| place will pull you over for going 66mph or even 70mph.
| If they started pulling over everyone going 70 in a 65
| there would not be "such a public backlash that it would
| quickly get repealed in its entirety" because we all know
| and they all knew they were breaking the law. But it
| isn't enforced in an authoritarian way because we have
| different vehicles, sometimes you need to pass, and
| frankly 70 and 65 just aren't that big of a problem. But
| almost everyone would agree that we do need a speed
| limit, although they might not agree on the number and a
| number has to be picked.
|
| Now, I don't want to assume your political leanings, but
| I am getting some strong libertarian vibes. And you seem
| like a nice and thoughtful person, so maybe bad ideas
| don't even occur to you because you are honest and just
| don't think that way. But imagine, or go ask grok, some
| other ways this could work out. And while you are at it,
| imagine a law that did not effect all citizens the same.
| Now imagine that a bad law could effect a relatively
| small group much more than others. In what way could they
| cause affect a backlash that would quickly get a law
| repealed in its entirety?
|
| Using money to incentivize any public action on behalf of
| the government should be a sort of last-resort situation
| where it makes sense and the people already being paid to
| do it can't for some reason. This is a very libertarian
| idea, in fact. A more reasonable idea, although much less
| libertarian, would be to pass a law that makes it where
| cars can not idle for more than a specified amount of
| time in certain situations, but that would come with its
| own can of worms don't you think? And I personally
| wouldn't be for such a law. In fact I am against the
| snitch on idlers law. If someone wants to pay $7 a gallon
| for gas to set there and idle it away, why shouldn't they
| be able to? How is it different than them driving the
| same gas away?
| hiAndrewQuinn wrote:
| Re/ the speed limit, I'm afraid I simply don't
| understand. Why not just raise the speed limit to 70
| instead of having everyone lie? If everyone starts then
| doing 75, why not raise it again? Eventually you'll hit a
| breakeven point. Considering that most highway accidents
| happen because two people disagree about the speed they
| should be driving at, and considering that fatalities and
| accident severity in such accidents scales with something
| crazy like the square or even the cube of the speed
| you're going at, this actually feels like the worst
| possible way to negotiate that.
|
| Re/ "imagine that a bad law could effect a relatively
| small group much more than others", I think we would have
| to define more closely what a 'bad law' actually is to
| answer that first. Under this kind of fine-based regime,
| it would have to be something that targets a small group,
| unfairly, and manages to consistently extract a lot of
| money from them, which requires they have a lot of money
| to reliably extract in the first place - otherwise it
| stops being worth the effort to target them specifically.
|
| I guess you could imagine making lottery scratch tickets
| a fineable offense, and thereby target pensioners
| unfairly. That's the closest I got after 5 minutes of
| thinking about it.
|
| Re/ using money to incentivize public action - we have
| clashing moral intuitions on this, I definitely don't see
| it as a last resort. In fact I would far prefer it to be
| the first resort. Money is a much more efficient,
| scalable, precise, and robust way of handling things than
| e.g. sending people to prison (which we still have to pay
| for, by the way, prisons aren't cheap).
|
| Re/ the idler's law itself - You're allowed to be against
| it personally, that's fine. The people of New York City
| voted in favor of it, and they probably have good reasons
| for this that mostly only make sense to themselves.
| Personally, I've been to New York, and seen how cramped
| those streets are. It doesn't surprise me that some
| schmuck holding up half of 6th Avenue should be made to
| pay for it - they are likely causing thousands of dollars
| of cash flow loss _per second_ because on who 's late for
| work because of them. But even then, I don't live there.
| I don't actually have a good sense of this kind of thing.
| I defer to the wisdom of the locals here. Do as the
| Romans do.
| sghiassy wrote:
| Love the app; will use.
|
| Scared of MAGA targeting brown people with this type of
| social enforcement
| CamperBob2 wrote:
| _Compliance with the law is a separate issue from the
| contents of the law._
|
| Not really. If perfect, ubiquitious enforcement were
| possible, our laws would probably look very different.
| MathMonkeyMan wrote:
| It seems the lawyers are making it difficult:
| https://www.nyc.gov/site/dep/environment/idling-citizens-air...
| rafram wrote:
| It used to be that as long as the vehicle was on the same block
| as a school or park, you only had to take a one-minute video
| (versus three-minute). Now there are some annoying
| documentation requirements if you want to submit a shorter
| video.
|
| Doesn't impact the overall usefulness of the program very much
| IMO -- I just didn't add special handling for school/park
| reports like I would've before they made that change.
| michaelmrose wrote:
| Presumably they don't want you taking videos of people who
| aren't in fact breaking the law and profiting from tickets.
| NYC regulation requires you to not idle more than 5 minutes.
|
| https://dec.ny.gov/environmental-protection/air-
| quality/cont...
|
| Although they don't require you to actually take a 5 minute
| video it is overwhelmingly likely that most people don't pull
| out there phone every time a vehicle stops in NYC so that
| most 3 minute videos are liable to be of 5 minute idles.
|
| There are obviously 2 types of problem children cheaters and
| dummies. It's easier for cheaters to take a 1 minute video
| since even those who don't intend to idle for any substantial
| time may pause a moment. For dummies making them actually sit
| there and film 3 minutes decreases the chance that they will
| accidentally misunderstand how much time has passed. People
| are heavily biased towards their own benefits and are liable
| to miss-perceive 4.5 minutes as 5. Less possible when he
| pulled out his phone at the 2+ minute mark and now has to
| wait 3 minutes to have enough.
| gametorch wrote:
| Good. Those lawyers are doing God's work.
| deadbabe wrote:
| We need something similar for tax evaders, and now we'll be
| talking real money.
| haunter wrote:
| https://www.sec.gov/enforcement-litigation/whistleblower-pro...
| deadbabe wrote:
| Put some automation in front of it
| J7jKW2AAsgXhWm wrote:
| Would be great to have this for illegally parked parks as well.
| theptip wrote:
| Nice. Pricing seems a bit steep for occasional use; does iOS make
| it easy to do micro-transactions with Apple Pay? (I get the dev
| may be trying to put bread on the table with this, which is also
| fine...)
| rafram wrote:
| That's a fair point. I have to see how the AI costs stack up,
| since heavy use can run up the bill pretty quickly with video
| inputs, and all subscriptions come with unlimited usage.
| dummydummy1234 wrote:
| Wouldn't it make more sense to charge per report?
| theptip wrote:
| As a user I'd be happy to pay $5 for a bundle of credits and
| just top up whenever it runs out.
|
| And as you say you don't want to be in the position where a
| whale costs you $50 by submitting a crazy number of requests.
|
| Maybe these are big-scale problems though :)
| RamblingCTO wrote:
| Kinda offtopic, but I think this is so dystopian as it's only the
| beginning. Technocracy at its best. Have a bad starter and don't
| wanna stop the car? The numbers and rules don't care, no room for
| benevolence.
| olivermuty wrote:
| My kids asthma wants your commercial car in a service bay, not
| idling outside a restaurant. I am all for not making a
| technocratic dystopia but this reasoning seems wrong lol
| dale_huevo wrote:
| Maybe the commercial driver has asthma too and needs to run
| the AC.
| ksynwa wrote:
| Your kid's asthms would appreciate more if there were fewer
| cars on roads and logistics leaned more on robust public
| transportation rather than putting the onus on individual
| household to own and operate multi-tonne vehicles.
| toomuchtodo wrote:
| New York City has already implemented a congestion
| surcharge in Manhattan to destroy demand for using personal
| vehicles, and has a robust public transit system. The only
| step left would be mandating EVs, and outlawing combustion.
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Phase-
| out_of_fossil_fuel_vehic...
| whycome wrote:
| That's the problem. Major polluters have convinced people
| it's the small scale production to attack rather than the
| giant industrial polluters. We also allow incredibly
| inefficient engines that produce lots of pollution.
|
| How about a pollution credit trading program then? If my
| efficient car produces way less pollution than your gas-
| guzzling truck, I should get the room to idle until I reach
| our agreed max.
|
| A technological snitch program is a weird and messed up
| outcome when we ignore the base problems.
|
| But, cool technical achievement. I'm scared that a similar
| parking snitch program is all too easy as well. Car parked
| 3.5 hours in a 3hr max neighbourhood? Get them fined and get
| a sweet bounty! Thanks I hate it.
| whstl wrote:
| _> Major polluters have convinced people it's the small
| scale production to attack rather than the giant industrial
| polluters_
|
| It's both. A car idling outside your window is still gonna
| be an issue even if the planet somehow solve the big stuff.
| theptip wrote:
| Right now we are in the "laws are seldom actually enforced"
| regime.
|
| It seems pretty clear that laws will be enforced more in
| future, the obvious response is to go prune the laws to get rid
| of the ones that we actually aren't OK with being enforced.
| bluescrn wrote:
| Laws will be enforced if it's safe and profitable to do so,
| especially if the process can be fully automated.
|
| Meanwhile, industrial-scale shoplifting, hard drugs, sex
| crimes, riots. No automated enforcement possible there, let
| alone profitable automated enforcement.
| theptip wrote:
| I feel things like shoplifting should actually be
| automatable, it's a question of ROI currently.
|
| One idea I play with is "police 2.0" where you can dispatch
| a small fast drone to a crime scene, and follow the perp
| from a safe distance. A lot of crimes could be solved this
| way (eg car chases, illegal dirt bike gangs, petty robbery
| etc).
|
| I really don't want pervasive surveillance, but perhaps
| there is a middle ground where response times are fast
| enough that you can be purely reactive to a 911 call/app.
|
| Feels quite slippery-slope though. I think we should expect
| increased debate on the social contract as these new
| systems become more capable and the "enforcement gap"
| becomes larger.
| theptip wrote:
| I like the general idea, and I've been surprised this hasn't
| taken off elsewhere, eg citizen videos for traffic violations
| like blocking intersections, it seems these should be ROI
| positive for the city to implement (lower enforcement costs, more
| ticket revenue).
| bluefirebrand wrote:
| I really don't understand why anyone would want this
|
| Do you really want to live in a society where we're monitored
| for even the slightest infractions at all times and
| automatically punished regardless of any circumstances that
| might explain the behavior?
| collingreen wrote:
| I get your take and agree with the sentiment BUT I don't
| think this somehow requires "automatic punishment". Also, if
| the laws are there then I tend to think they should be
| enforced. Maybe this kind of thing will empower places to
| drop some of the laws most folks agree are "slightest
| infractions".
| gorbachev wrote:
| New York City doesn't do this for "even the slightest
| infractions at all times".
|
| The idling regulations are based on real harm, and the
| reporting requirements include things like recording video to
| prove that the car you're reporting didn't start idling in
| the last 5 seconds, but has, in fact, been doing that for 3
| minutes or longer, or 1 minute or longer adjacent to a
| school.
|
| More info here:
| https://www.nyc.gov/site/dep/environment/idling-citizens-
| air...
|
| You have to actually submit a 3:01 (or 1:01) minute video as
| part of the report for that to be actionable.
|
| And, yes, I would really, really want to live in a society
| where unnecessary idling is not allowed. And if I was living
| next to a street corner where that happens regularly, I would
| be on that street corner recording videos any time I'd have
| free time, and more, if I had babies, who are especially
| vulnerable to air pollution, living with me.
| hiAndrewQuinn wrote:
| In _Crime and Punishment: An Economic Approach_ , Nobel
| Prize-winning economist Gary Becker showed crime can be
| discouraged if the expected punishment outweighs the reward.
| Expected punishment has not one, but two important factors:
| How big the punishment is, _and_ how likely the punishment is
| to actually be levied.
|
| Punishment likelihood depends on how likely the crime is to
| be detected in the first place. Older societies such as
| medieval Europe or Qing dynasty era China used the death
| penalty for so many seemingly minor things, and this formula
| was a big part of why. State authorities at that period of
| human history had a very low chance of actually detecting
| something like forgery. So in order to deter criminals they
| had to ratchet up just how big the potential punishment
| actually was if you did get caught.
|
| Conversely, as our societies have improved their ability to
| detect crimes, our stomach for policies like "Forgery is
| punishable by death" has rightfully taken a nosedive. So,
| yes, the trend I've seen across the centuries suggests to me
| I might well prefer to live in a society where the detection
| rate is higher than it currently is. There's no reason to
| suspect we've hit upon the optimal point for human
| flourishing where we are now.
| ponector wrote:
| I would like to live in a society where everyone is strictly
| following traffic regulations. Almost every rule there is
| written with someone's blood.
|
| Also basics driving rules like zip merge will make traffic
| better.
| woodruffw wrote:
| This isn't for chewing gum on the Subway. It's for a specific
| kind of scofflaw activity that no society would tolerate were
| it not for the presumptive shield of goodness that surrounds
| drivers in this country.
|
| Having grown up in the city and gone to a public school where
| over half of my peers had asthma from the heavy truck route
| next to our playground, I welcome any kind of financial
| realignment between drivers ( _especially_ commercial
| drivers) and their behavior.
| crote wrote:
| Some countries are already doing this, for example Vietnam and
| China.
|
| I recall reading about it _years_ ago because some enterprising
| individuals decided that the revenue from catching random
| violations in-the-wild wasn 't enough, so they started to
| deliberately create dangerous situations, where breaking a
| traffic law (which would then be recorded and submitted for a
| reward) was the only safe option for the victim. Unfortunately
| I haven't been able to quickly find a source to back this up.
| hiAndrewQuinn wrote:
| This is why optimal policy design has the fines get paid
| directly from the violator to the reporter. That brings its
| own quirks, but they're all surprisingly tractable with other
| market mechanisms.
|
| There's a whole literature on this topic in economics under
| mechanism design. They've been a longstanding research
| interest of mine, I consider it almost like the land value
| tax of legal enforcement by this point.
| a5c11 wrote:
| Since you've mentioned it, that'd be great to give some details
| regarding the AI mechanism you used. I really find that trend of
| hiding everything behind "The Divine AI" off-putting. What
| exactly AI does in the context of the application?
| vineyardmike wrote:
| Within the last year or so, I discovered my city's 311 app, which
| I've become addicted to. I don't drive, so I'm always walking
| around the neighborhood, and got in the habit of always reporting
| graffiti, dumping, illegally parked cars, etc.
|
| This had inspired me to try and make a few apps for civic use,
| but I discovered that many of the accessible web tools for my
| city have rules against bots. For example, the city maintains a
| list of locations and dates where parking is temporarily
| restricted for short term things like construction, but I can't
| scrape it.
|
| I really wish that the government (at any level) made more
| serviced and data available as APIs or digital formats. The
| government is usually bad at building/buying websites and
| services, and I'd have done it for free (or for $0.99 on the App
| Store).
| yodsanklai wrote:
| > always reporting graffiti
|
| How does your city deal with graffitis? mine is plagued with
| graffitis and I can't see how they can be fought. It takes too
| much resources to remove them in a timely manner and impossible
| to catch the perpetrators.
| dcsan wrote:
| And the cost is often on the small business owner
| vineyardmike wrote:
| It's just a game of cat and mouse. I dont think there is a
| way to "win", because it's so easy to make new graffiti, and
| not practical to try and police and catch people in the act.
| I think they require private property owners to clean their
| own graffiti, which really sucks, but makes it more
| manageable for the city to focus on public areas.
|
| The city really just has a queue of cleanup sites and
| priorities locations that are high visibility or important,
| like school yards or transit infrastructure. An elementary
| school nearby had its mural destroyed by graffiti, and it was
| cleaned up within a day.
| renewiltord wrote:
| San Francisco does the sensible thing and fines the property
| owner. This is the just and right thing. In fact, I strongly
| support putting victims of drunk driving in jail: this
| strongly disincentivizes driving near drunk drivers.
| dawnerd wrote:
| They do that in my city too and it's kinda insane. There
| was a shop that had a mural and the city considered it
| graffiti. So dumb.
| yapyap wrote:
| [flagged]
| bluescrn wrote:
| Milking motorists is very profitable. Stopping more problematic
| crime, not so much.
|
| So we end up with anarcho-tyranny, where 'real' crime is policed
| poorly, if at all - but loads of resources and tech are deployed
| aggressively policing+punishing mostly-law-abiding people for the
| most minor of infractions.
| calvinmorrison wrote:
| Anarcho-Tyranny: A of government in which the good citizen
| lives in fear of government , while the criminals run amok
| without fear of repercussions.
| mjmsmith wrote:
| This has nothing to do with "milking motorists", whatever that
| means. (The phrase generally seems to be used by people who are
| angry that they can't speed and run red lights with impunity).
| gametorch wrote:
| > This has nothing to do with "milking motorists"
|
| Forcing motorists to pay for minor infractions is the entire
| point of the app.
| bluescrn wrote:
| So when actual criminals leave their stolen getaway car
| idling as they go and loot a store, the owner of the stolen
| car now gets an extra fully-automated fine with likely no
| way to appeal it, and the real criminals get away free.
| mjmsmith wrote:
| Upvoting this because I needed the laugh.
| mjmsmith wrote:
| The law applies to commercial vehicles. The aggregate
| effect of commercial vehicles ignoring the law isn't minor.
| You can find out more by following the links at the top of
| the page.
| dale_huevo wrote:
| I'm shocked that a site, most of whose readership is engaged in
| surveillance capitalism as a career, is excited about this.
|
| I've been looking for an app to donate my time as a volunteer
| meter maid.
| dang wrote:
| That's not a remotely accurate description of HN's readership!
| screye wrote:
| Amazing !
|
| Decentralizing traffic enforcement is a win-win. Bravo to NYC for
| opening this sort of program and OP for turning it into an
| "efficient free market".
|
| Will try it out soon. Bookmarked.
| dale_huevo wrote:
| > Decentralizing traffic enforcement is a win-win
|
| Win-win for who exactly? Maybe we need to decentralize and AI-
| accelerate construction permit reporting too. Your backyard
| fence looks DIY and not up to code and your porch light looks
| like a fire hazard.
| pvg wrote:
| We absolutely do that all the time?
| organsnyder wrote:
| Most cities have ways for neighbors to report things like
| this.
| dale_huevo wrote:
| Yes, and they're almost exclusively used by the worst type
| of vindictive chickenshit humans imaginable. I've known
| people affected by this, whose evil neighbors used 311 as a
| weapon because they simply didn't like them, and caused
| them tens of thousands of dollars in forced unnecessary
| renovations not to mention stress, for trivial violations
| that are widely ignored.
| jen20 wrote:
| > Win-win for who exactly?
|
| Society at large? All the people who don't have the breathe
| the fumes of some garbage commercial vehicle.
|
| > Your backyard fence looks DIY
|
| Provided it's up for code, whether it was "done yourself" or
| not doesn't matter.
|
| > your porch light looks like a fire hazard.
|
| Absolutely this should be reported.
| gametorch wrote:
| It's not a win-win for society.
|
| What do you think of China, where the application of this
| idea is widespread?
| perihelions wrote:
| They're trialing something like that in France. There's a
| project that uses machine learning on aerial photography
| databases to search for objects in peoples' backyards, for
| enforcement,
|
| https://www.theverge.com/2022/8/30/23328442/france-ai-
| swimmi... ( _" French government uses AI to spot undeclared
| swimming pools -- and tax them / The government used machine
| learning to scan aerial photos of properties"_)
| gametorch wrote:
| It's not a win-win.
|
| Look at China as a perfect example of what happens when you
| apply this idea at scale.
| mstaoru wrote:
| I lived in China for many many years and this is not a good
| example. Parking, and driving in general, is chaotic and
| unregulated. Yes, you have cameras everywhere that detect
| running on red or taking a wrong lane, but that's about makes
| it. Speeding, haphazard parking, everything is allowed.
| Scooters go anywhere. Bikes go anywhere. People go anywhere.
| Red, green, anything in between, it's a free for all. Like a
| policeman smoking under "no smoking" signs is totally normal.
| I'd say, you can get away with mostly anything in China,
| nobody would care (unless you're non-Chinese, then dutiful
| neighbors will report your every sneeze).
|
| PS: Yet I do find OP's idea reminding me of China. Having a
| society that polices itself (just in China it's more about
| thought, not behavior) is definitely not a thing I would
| enjoy.
| Zenbit_UX wrote:
| I'll never understand how people believe bike and
| pedestrian "infractions" to be the same as that of motor
| vehicles.
|
| Members of this "get off my sidewalk!" group often fail to
| realize this: Did you study to become a pedestrian? Did you
| go to a bicycle driving school to acquire a permit to
| operate one? Was an exam at all given in order to use
| public foot or bike paths?
|
| If the answer is no, then you aren't held to the same
| standards as cars, which are heavily regulated and require
| licenses to operate.
|
| Obeying road signs for bicycle and pedestrians are
| suggestions, rarely enforced, and the worst case scenario
| is usually you hurt yourself. Your ability to hurt others
| has an upper bound that society deems acceptable.
| kennywinker wrote:
| Fines not linked to income means it's legal if you're rich. I'm
| all for fining polluters to disincentivize pollution, but until
| we have income-pinned fines i'm not reporting any car under
| $50k
| dale_huevo wrote:
| [flagged]
| dang wrote:
| Would you please stop posting like this? Once was fine, but
| half a dozen is too much. You've made your point, and that's
| ok, but this is not curious conversation.
|
| Also when the posts start getting dyspeptic-meta like this,
| something has gone wrong.
|
| https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
| gametorch wrote:
| Genuinely curious, why aren't people allowed to say this is
| dystopian without getting flagged? What rule, specifically, does
| that violate?
|
| I think this is dystopian. Paying people to rat out their fellow
| citizens. Nightmarish.
|
| What if this idea was applied to the laws ICE is trying to
| enforce? Would you think that's dystopian?
| rafram wrote:
| This program specifically fines businesses with fleets of
| _commercial_ vehicles (delivery trucks, buses, et cetera) for
| illegal idling, and escalates the fines for repeat offenders.
| You can 't report random individuals, nor would I really want
| to build an app for that. The point is to get businesses to
| stop polluting.
| gametorch wrote:
| Okay, that makes it a little less dystopian.
|
| But you make money off people snitching.
|
| And you're setting the stage for something far worse, imo.
| paulgb wrote:
| I see where you're coming from, but the alternatives are
| either that the law isn't enforced, or the state ramps up
| its own surveillance, which is more dystopian to me.
|
| I see this as in the same vein as SEC whistleblower awards,
| which I've never heard described as dystopian. Businesses
| just don't have the same expectation of privacy that
| individuals do.
| gametorch wrote:
| I mean, the law not being enforced is wayyyyyyyyy less
| dystopian than this app and the numerous other ones like
| it that are bound to spring up.
|
| I'd rather live in truck fumes than a hyper-automated
| snitch surveillance state.
| octernion wrote:
| you have like 50 comments in this thread whining about
| the law and desperately wanting businesses (not private
| individuals!) to idle their trucks next to schools.
|
| maybe take a break man. not healthy.
| gametorch wrote:
| I'm specifically commenting a lot because posts that have
| more comments than upvotes get downranked on the front
| page.
| octernion wrote:
| it's not working - it's one of the highest ranking posts
| - and you really don't want to go around admitting that.
| seriously, take a break.
| gametorch wrote:
| Yep and I got an upvoted comment dissenting against all
| the authoritarian bootlickers in every single thread on
| this post. People agree with me. Even on the comments of
| mine that got flagged lol
|
| It even pissed people off enough that one of the mods
| started commenting about my own personal projects that
| have nothing to do with this lmao
|
| Oh and I guess it did work because now it's down to 28,
| almost off the front page. Much lower than where it was
| before
| octernion wrote:
| it's a 5 hour old post man. just because you are mad at
| not being able to poison the air of children isn't a good
| reason to be insane about it.
| gametorch wrote:
| > you are mad at not being able to poison the air of
| children
|
| lol you know you're the one acting in bad faith here.
| hope you feel better soon
| nerevarthelame wrote:
| Is it still "snitching" if the reporter, as the person
| breathing the unnecessarily polluted air, is a victim of
| the crime?
| gametorch wrote:
| Yes.
| darkwater wrote:
| Being about businesses only and no individuals makes all
| the difference in the world. Otherwise it should be seen as
| dystopian also the fact that you can call the police on
| your neighborhood because "you heard noises".
|
| I bet that the friction in the submission process was
| deliberately added to avoid abuses, but maybe it's just
| incompetence. Depending on the reason, this app can be
| either good or against the spirit of the rule.
| AnimalMuppet wrote:
| Maybe a bunch of people just don't agree with your position.
| (If they're idling and I report them, I'm a snitch. If I don't,
| I get to breathe the pollution. Why is snitching worse than
| poisoning people in your city? Why should the snitch be the bad
| guy in that situation, rather than the polluter?)
| gametorch wrote:
| False dichotomy. Both the snitch and the polluter are bad
| guys.
|
| If you want an example of widespread application of this idea
| in a society, look at China. I rest my case.
| dang wrote:
| People are certainly allowed to say that. Your comment, for
| example, hasn't been flagged.
|
| However, a lot of the comments tending in that direction have
| been (1) generic and (2) flamebait and/or fulminatey, which are
| bad for HN threads and against the site guidelines.
|
| https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
| pvg wrote:
| You regularly spam a generic generative ai 'art' thing on this
| site so of all people it feels like you'd have a broader, less
| kneejerky and more charitable view of what use of the
| technology is 'dystopian'
| gametorch wrote:
| That's a fair point. It's hard to assess whether I'm being
| honest with myself about that.
|
| But I know this app is truly evil in my system of morality.
|
| AI art can be very soulless. Very dehumanizing. In certain
| sense.
|
| But those two qualities are undeniably attached to
| surveillance states. In all senses. There is no argument
| against that.
| pvg wrote:
| It's someone's show hn for something that's NYC law,
| designed to address a specific local problem. Calling this
| 'evil' is, at a minimum, unserious bombast which the site
| rules ask you to avoid, especially when discussing someone
| else's work. You can critique the work without the
| Savonarola act. It also happens to be more effective that
| way so it's in your own interest.
| gametorch wrote:
| I really am supportive of 99.9% of Show HNs, merely for
| the sake of the posters actually trying to build
| something
|
| This is one of the few things I feel very strongly about
| and I'm going to do everything in my power to stop it.
| His idea is actively harming what makes America a good
| place to live in. And his idea is what makes China a bad
| place to live in. I'm not just going to sit here and say
| nothing.
|
| I don't care if this negative EV for my own personal
| interests. I felt the need to speak up and people agree
| with me. Hopefully his post gets taken down.
| pvg wrote:
| Nobody is telling you how and how strongly to feel - just
| not to be a yelly asshole about it.
|
| This is a valid show hn - if you can't comment on it
| reasonably just don't comment or find a thread where the
| general surveillance topic is actually the topic.
| gametorch wrote:
| You're the one bringing up my personal projects that are
| irrelevant to this post.
|
| I don't care about you or your opinion. Ban me.
| matsemann wrote:
| Man, I wish my city would make it possible to report drivers
| breaking the law. My big issue is cars parking in the cycle
| lanes. 1830 cars got fined for that in my city in total in 2024.
| Aka 5 a day. As a single cyclist I see more cars parked in cycle
| lanes every day on my commute than all those hundred officers
| give tickets to in total..
| cosmic_cheese wrote:
| What I'd like to see is hard separation of roads and bike
| lanes. As a cyclist, nothing but a line painted on the road
| makes me feel unsafe, as a driver it's difficult to not get
| nervous when passing a cyclist in the lane, and culturally
| drivers are generally favored over cyclists which results in
| things like parking in bike lanes not being adequately
| enforced. All these things would be solved by bike lanes being
| fully independent from the road.
| josephcsible wrote:
| > What I'd like to see is hard separation of roads and bike
| lanes.
|
| That's a great idea, as long as the hard separation goes both
| ways with bikes no longer being allowed in car lanes.
| cosmic_cheese wrote:
| Doable, but would probably require bike paths to be wider
| than they currently are and split into two lanes: one for
| road bikers and one for everybody else.
| matsemann wrote:
| Why? I don't get this "gotcha". Is there any actual
| rational reason for making such rules, or is it stemming
| from some annoyance from seeing cyclists in the road?
|
| There already exists roads where cyclists can't be:
| Highways/motorways. If the problem is cyclists in the road,
| that solves itself by building better infrastructure. Where
| there's _adequate_ cycling infrastructure, cyclists prefer
| to use it. Where there 's lacking or none, one should of
| course be able to use the road. Otherwise it would be a de
| facto ban on cycling, which I'm sure was your point?
| josephcsible wrote:
| > Is there any actual rational reason for making such
| rules, or is it stemming from some annoyance from seeing
| cyclists in the road?
|
| It's from a combination of getting stuck behind cyclists
| going really slowly and with no opportunity to pass them,
| and from so much blatantly illegal behavior by them like
| running red lights without even slowing down.
| georgeburdell wrote:
| Wish my California city had this attitude that you can report
| people via an app. So many offenses "run with the driver", i.e.
| they will not prosecute unless a cop sees it happening and
| positively identifies the driver. They won't even prosecute red
| light running from a video with the license plate clearly
| visible.
| Nifty3929 wrote:
| I feel it's Orwellian, or Stalin-esq to have us being paid off to
| snitch on each other.
|
| Certainly, if you have evidence of murder or something, please do
| report it.
|
| But for an idling vehicle?
|
| Note that these laws are only targeting idling while parked,
| rather than during normal use, such as at a traffic light. This
| is called "true-idling" or "long-duration" idling.
|
| Has anybody considered how much CO2 or other greenhouse gases are
| actually released by "true-idling" or "long-duration" idling
| vehicles, either individually or in aggregate? I spent a few
| minutes researching it with an LLM and couldn't come up with
| much. Most of the information and numbers I got were for ALL
| idling, including during normal driving like at a traffic light.
| My guess based on that is that it (true idling) is a trivially
| small amount of CO2 compared to the overall.
|
| But it's plenty to earn yourself a nice payoff at the expense of
| your hard working delivery driver!
| paulgb wrote:
| I think the intent is less about the CO2 emissions as about the
| air quality that people have to breathe (hence a stricter
| standard in some locations).
|
| I don't know about measurable effects but I hate when I pass a
| long-idling truck and can taste it in the air.
| gametorch wrote:
| > I hate when I pass a long-idling truck and can taste it in
| the air.
|
| And I hate living in a surveillance state.
| toast0 wrote:
| > I feel it's Orwellian, or Stalin-esq to have us being paid
| off to snitch on each other.
|
| Sure, but it's a different kind of dystopia to have commercial
| vehicles idling and fouling the air outside of normal driving.
| As described where you have to capture 3 minutes of idling (1
| minute near schools) and assuming most people take a while to
| notice, rather than starting the timer immediately when the
| vehicle stops, it seems like a reasonable way to enhance
| compliance.
|
| Idling while parked may not be a large contribution to total
| emissions, but it's harder to justify than idling in normal
| operation, and easier to enforce against, so there you go.
| Sometimes refrigerated transport more or less needs to idle to
| keep the contents at temperature, not sure if there's
| exceptions for that or if they just need to retrofit with more
| insulation or batteries to run the compressor or etc in order
| to comply.
|
| Idling at lights probably gets reduced by auto start/stop in
| new vehicles as well as congestion charges reducing traffic and
| probably dwell time at lights. Auto start/stop isn't a
| universally loved thing; it makes some cars really frustrating
| to use, but when done well, it seems like a reasonable tradeoff
| to reduce unneccesary emissions.
| stemlord wrote:
| Feature request: the ability to report illegally parked police
| vehicles
| rurcliped wrote:
| feature request: AI-based risk analysis, with a model of which
| types of commercial vehicles at that location are likely to be
| controlled by organized crime
| gametorch wrote:
| I would guess at least half of American society vehemently
| rejects this idea.
| userbinator wrote:
| Hopefully more than half.
| 9cb14c1ec0 wrote:
| Spying on your friends, neighbors, and family? Nothing to see
| here, just old Soviet style repression tactics.
| userbinator wrote:
| Orwell was right.
| kennywinker wrote:
| You mean when he said "Every line of serious work that I have
| written since 1936 has been written, directly or indirectly,
| against totalitarianism and for democratic Socialism, as I
| understand it." or something else?
| CamperBob2 wrote:
| Not really. He thought the regime would have to use force. He
| didn't predict that people would line up outside Wal-Mart at
| zero dark thirty on Black Friday morning to grab the latest,
| greatest telescreen models, and then fight each other like
| dogs for the last ones in stock.
| scoofy wrote:
| or "Stop breaking the law asshole"
| kennywinker wrote:
| I understand the sentiment, but if you accept the premise that
| idling vehicles harm everyone, which they probably do - via air
| quality, foreign wars to keep oil flowing, and climate change -
| then why should we not fine the heck out of anybody who harms
| us all?
|
| Don't like getting reported by randos with apps? Don't idle.
|
| My only beef with the law itself, is that the fines need to be
| income-linked - otherwise it's only illegal if you're poor.
| tptacek wrote:
| These are people spying on commercial vehicles abusing rights
| of way to avoid paying their fair share of the cost to carry
| them in the area (parking, in particular). Why are you taking
| the side of the trucks?
| tootie wrote:
| Idling trucks are a public health hazard. Reporting actual
| crimes isn't spying. Certainly not when it's on public streets.
| p3rls wrote:
| I've had so many people over the years (nearly all of them the
| kinds of people who looked like they never had to work a job in
| their lives) try to surreptitiously record my truck's plates
| when I was doing fire protection inspections in the city.
|
| Don't worry though, every ticket the company got was billed
| right back to buildings we were working at in another form. The
| balance sheet always wins.
| crusty wrote:
| I'll have to hunt down a link to the piece but I swear I saw a
| video about a few people in NYC who muddy go around finding
| idling vehicles and piece together the fine bounties into full
| time equivalent work. This could really disrupt their industry.
| kennywinker wrote:
| If a crime's punishment is a fine, that means it's legal if
| you're rich.
|
| https://upriseri.com/the-inequality-of-fines-how-monetary-pe...
| Zenbit_UX wrote:
| You created a subscription service for power-~~users~~ snitches?
|
| This is wild demonstration of misaligned incentive structures at
| every level.
| wingspar wrote:
| In this age of generative AI, how would a someone defend against
| a maliciously AI generated/altered video report?
| bob_theslob646 wrote:
| Most of NYC has cameras. The timestamp and location data from
| those can be linked.
|
| You could also have multiple references to validate via
| crowdscoring.
|
| You can also find people who are bad actors to decentivize them
| from mass reporting.
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