It seems the lawyers are making it difficult: https://www.nyc.gov/site/dep/environment/idling-citizens-air...
replies(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...
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.
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.