Want to avoid S.F. parking cops? A 23-year-old's app can help.

"Riley Walz has never received a parking citation - but he knows better than anyone where he could get one. On Tuesday, the 23-year-old data engineer launched "Find My Parking Cops," a site that tracks - in near real-time - parking citations being issued across San Francisco and the officers writing them. The name - and look - intentionally mimics "Find My Friends," showing the initials of every officer on duty and their whereabouts, based on the last citation they made."

"The website, which has gone big online, works by querying the San Francisco Municipal Transportation Agency's citation payment website. Anyone can technically search for a citation number to pull up a copy of the citation including information about what vehicle was cited, where, and why - this just does it for every citation across the city, all at once. Walz got the idea when he was playing around with the payment site after his roommate got a parking ticket."

"Walz also created a leaderboard that tallies the total value of parking tickets issued by each officer. As of Tuesday afternoon, at least three officers had issued over $15,000 worth of tickets in just over a day. (The leaderboard resets every Monday at midnight.) The map allows users to follow each officer's "journey" through the city. Walz said he found that some officers stay put in the same location: One spent a day just issuing tickets to buses at the same address, outside the Hyatt Hotel."

Riley Walz, a 23-year-old data engineer, launched Find My Parking Cops, a site that tracks parking citations and the officers issuing them across San Francisco in near real time. The site queries the San Francisco Municipal Transportation Agency citation payment portal to pull citation copies, extracting vehicle, location and violation details and officer initials. The interface mimics Find My Friends and maps each officer’s last citation, while a leaderboard tallies total ticket dollar amounts per officer. The system exposes patterns in enforcement; some officers remained at the same address issuing multiple tickets, and at least three issued over $15,000 in one day.

Read at Mission Local