Kamachtak! A Crowd-Sourced Traffic Violations Police

So it’s kind of similar to Cheyef 7alak in that it seeks to name and shame stupid and douchy drivers (or maybe folks who have forgotten what the law is!). However, it’s different because this is map-based, in that I can snap a photo of you parked on a sidewalk, upload it and geotag it.

Something else you should know is tha it’s only in Arabic, which I think is cool but is also limiting. What if foreigners residing in Lebanon who didn’t read and write Arabic wanted to utilize the app? They’re probably more prone to notice these violations which we tend to overlook with time… I also find it easier to skim through things in English vs Arabic, so I think it’d be nice to have the choice.

Another comment I have is that it’s not mobile-friendly. There are no apps for the website, and the version that opens from a mobile device is the desktop one. Correct me if I’m wrong, but you usually wouldn’t have the patience to snap a photo, go home, transfer it to your laptop or desktop, the upload and tag it… Doing it on-the-spot in my opinion would do wonders for Kamachtak!

Another thing worth noting is that Kamachtak! have been going guerilla marketing, pounding the pavement and giving people fake “citation” like the one on top of this post telling them “If you see this stuck on your car, you have violated the law! Go to http://www.kamachtak.com and see your mistake” which is awesome in my humble opinion and gets the idea out there (that’s how I heard about them!)

However, I’ve been getting reports that these “citations” have seen their way into public parkings as well, which seems it might be laziness on the marketing guerilla side, or Lebanese folks don’t know the difference between a public parking and somewhere they’re not supposed to park!

Anyway, it seems Kamachtak! is still developing and perhaps in the near future, we’ll see an English version and more mobile-friendly possibilities. Till then, be careful they don’t cite you!