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

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?

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.

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.

Yeah, like the ADA for example. We should not have started down that slippery slope. Repeal the ADA!

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.

“More Dunkin”? Is that an auto correct type for “more common”?

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.

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")

Most cities have ways for neighbors to report things like this.

> 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.

We absolutely do that all the time?

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.

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.

And the cost is often on the small business owner

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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.

> 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.