Safe Lanes is something called a Progressive Web App which basically means it's just a regular website that's super optimized for mobile so there's nothing to install. Rather than going to a traditional app store and downloading an app, you simply add Safe Lanes to your home screen similar to how you would bookmark a website. Here is how you add Safe Lanes to your homescreen on both Android & iOS.

Installing on Android

Installing on iOS

Note on iOS: There is a bug in Webkit that prevents Safe Lanes from accessing your camera in fullscreen mode hence why you will still see the browser's navigation bar after adding Safe Lanes to your home screen. We understand this is annoying and we're tracking this bug hoping that Apple will soon resolve it. Thanks for your patience.

The first step to reporting a violation is to grant Safe Lanes access to your location & camera. You should be prompted to allow access the first time you attempt to open the camera or click the recenter map button in the lower right hand corner of the screen.

Once Safe Lanes has access to your location & camera the map will center on the city you are in and you can start the reporting process by either taking a photo in the app or by uploading a previously taken photo from your camera roll or computer.

Note: You must be physically located within the United States to report illegal parking violations to Safe Lanes. If you are outside of the US and would like us to bring Safe Lanes to your country you can let us know here.

If you accidentally deny Safe Lanes access to your location or camera see how to reset your permissions here.

Safe Lanes is built using modern web technologies that allow it to run virtually anywhere. If we had set out to build a native iOS and Android app, you wouldn't be reading this as we would still be several months out from launching the platform. We understand that many people immediately look to proprietary app stores such as Google Play and the Apple App Store to download apps and we are actively looking for help to bring Safe Lanes to those platforms. If you have a strong background in iOS or Android development please get in touch!

Simply open the camera and take a photo. Once you do so it will be sent to our servers where we'll attempt to read the license plate using object character recognition. Once the photo is analyzed the app will advance to the next screen with the state and license plate fields filled in if they can be determined.

Many phones provide a 'hot key' or 'quick camera' shortcut to open your camera while the device is idle. On Android and iOS this is typically achieved by tapping the power key twice in quick succession. Opening your camera this way elimimates the need to wake the device, launch the app and then open the camera within the app thus allowing you to quickly snap a photo to be uploaded at a later time. When you're ready to submit a report with a previously taken photo simply open the camera in the app and select "upload photo".

Safe Lanes will attempt to extract the date, time and location from the metadata embedded in any photos you upload. If that metadata is missing, Safe Lanes will fall back on your current location and highlight those fields indicating that you should carefully review the date, time and location for accuracy before submitting your report. It is currently not possible to edit these fields after you submit your report. If you make a mistake just let us know and we'll help you fix it.

By participating in the act of photographing and reporting a fellow citizen for illegal behavior you acknowledge that you are potentially putting yourself in a conflict situation. Here are some ways to help you stay safe and accurately document the violation.

1. Focus on the vehicle not the person driving it. The optimal photograph contains a clear view of the license plate and some context as to where the vehicle is in relation to its environment.
2. If you are approached by a motorist while photographing their vehicle or submitting a report, kindly and calmly explain that you have observed them parking their vechile illegally and that you are collecting data for the city that will be used to make our infrastructure safer for everyone.
3. Understand that it is perfectly legal and that you have every right to photograph someone's vehicle when you are on public property aka your city streets. No one can demand your camera or mobile device from you. If you are aggressively confronted or attacked immediately contact your local authorities.

Safe Lanes uses object character recognition to try to automatically determine the license plate number and state in the photos you take. This feature works best if you take the photo of the vehicle head on from between 5 and 15 feet away and in good lighting. The quality of the camera in your device is also an important factor. We monitor how often Safe Lanes is able to determine the license plate in a photograph and are continually working to improve this feature using various sets of training data.

Certain vehicles such as USPS mail trucks typically do not have license plates, instead they'll usually have an identification number somewhere near the top of the truck. Enter this number in the license plate field and select the state the vehicle is in.

We save nothing on our servers until you actually submit a report. So if you upload a photo and then exit out of the reporting process before hitting "submit" the photo and any information you entered into the form fields is immediately destroyed. If you do submit your report, we retain the following information in perpetuity:

• Your IP address – This allows us to blacklist anyone who abuses the platform
• The geolocation of the violation (lat/lng)
• The time and date of the violation
• The physical address of the violation – We obtain this by reverse geocoding the lat/lng you provide us with using Google's geocoding API
• The license plate & state extracted from the photo (or entered by you)
• The type of obstruction you assigned the violation, if you selected one
• Any comments you enter in the description field

After you submit a report, all of the above (with the exception of your IP address) become publicly viewable and searchable on our platform.

If you report a violation in San Francisco, we automatically forward your report to San Francisco's non-emergency 311 service via their Open311 API. If you report a violation outside of San Francisco, your report is simply added to our database. In either case your report is immediately viewable, searchable and shareable simply by clicking the link on the map.

We are in active talks with multiple cities throughout the US to integrate with their existing 311 systems. If you would like to assist us with this please get in touch! In the meantime, continue reporting every violation you see as we're about to start sending reports to city councilmembers in our most active cities and you'll soon have the option to be cc'd on those reports. The more data we have, the louder our voice and the more pressure we can apply.

Our fundamental and primary goal is to collect data that will help your city prioritize and inform the design of safety improvement projects. As such we do not and will not tolerate any abuse of the data we are collecting for the purposes of publicly shaming someone or any similar action. We record license plates for two reasons:

1. Check reports against citation data to understand how our cities are responding to the data we are providing them with. Simply put, if you report a violation was that driver eventually cited? The only way we can know is to search our citation data for the license plate you reported.
2. Identify egregious, repeat offenders and take action as necessary.

"Taking action" can come in a number of ways. If a delivery vehicle accrues numerous violations and citations in a relatively small area, that we believe well frames an argument to install an appropriate loading zone for that vehicle. If a business is consistently exhibiting dangerous driving by racking up violations or citations all over the city, we believe that merits a public conversation that can help the business correct their behavior. If a private vehicle has been recorded consistently demonstrating dangerous or reckless behavior, we believe that information should be shared with local authorities and the Division of Motor Vehicles.

You can create an account simply by linking Safe Lanes to an existing social media account (currently Facebook or Google). Doing so will provide us with your public profile photo and email address which we use as a unique key to group your reports. We do not request, nor have the ability to view any other information associated with your social media accounts. Likewise, your connected social media account has no ability to view your activity on Safe Lanes nor can it access the reports you submit or any other data you provide us. You can disconnect Safe Lanes from your linked account at any time within the "authorized apps" settings of your social media account.

You can now view your most recent reports on your profile page. We're working on adding the ability to edit the description and license plate. Please check back soon.

Your profile and reporting stats are currently private and only available to you although we are working on adding support for custom usernames & profile photos at which point you'll be able to opt into making your profile public.

Any reports you submit to Safe Lanes will always be available for you to retrieve. We're working on providing this as an export in both JSON and CSV formats. Please check back soon for more info.

Simply contact us if you ever wish to deactivate your account.

Want to help us empower people with data that can get safer infrastructure in the ground? Check out our immediate needs and drop us a line.

One easy way you can highlight a dangerous area in your city it to conduct a "point in time" count of illegal parking violations similar to what we did in San Francisco in October, 2019. Reach out and we'll help you pull together volunteers to organize a direct action, analyze the data we collect and help you take it public. Many cities rely on point in time counts to make infrasture and enforcement decisions, however they're often arduous and expensive to conduct due to auditing systems that rely on manual data entry, paper and pencil. Safe Lanes eliminates all of that and makes the process simple, effective and believe it or not fun!

Are you active in your local cycling community and excited about what we're doing? Let us help you help us! Drop us a line and let's talk about how Safe Lanes can support safer street initiatives in your community. We built this tool for you and we need your help to realize it's full potential.

Do you make a product that you think would be of interest to people who care about street safety? We're working on a series of monthly contests to reward the most active contributors to the platform and we'd love to partner with you!

Do you write for your local news outlet or host a podcast about transportation justice and safer streets? We'd love to help you introduce Safe Lanes to your readers & listeners. Contact us to schedule an interview.

If you get a "Network Unavailable" error it's likely that we just made an update and the server is in the process of restarting. If you get this error, don't worry your report is saved on your device and will be automatically uploaded as soon as a network connection becomes available again.

Something not covered here? Having trouble with the app or need additional support? Drop us a line and let us know what's on your mind.