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Show HN: Report idling vehicles in NYC (and get a cut of the fines) with AI

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194 points rafram | 1 comments | 22 Jun 25 17:06 UTC | HN request time: 0.393s | source

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...

Show context
vineyardmike ◴[22 Jun 25 18:07 UTC] No.44348969[source]▶
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).

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yodsanklai ◴[22 Jun 25 20:05 UTC] No.44349850[source]▶
> 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.

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renewiltord ◴[22 Jun 25 20:50 UTC] No.44350172[source]▶
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.
replies(1): >>44350627 #
1. dawnerd ◴[22 Jun 25 21:55 UTC] No.44350627[source]▶
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.