Cyclist Falko Görres frequently bikes through Frankfurt's busy banking district - and almost every day, he gets off his bike, pulls out his phone and takes a picture of a delivery van parked on the bike path.
He uses the photo to report the traffic offence reasoning that safety is of the utmost importance. So he keeps on stopping his bike, taking photos and filing reports.
He sends some 70 a month in the hopes that some day, he and others will be able to cycle safely through the area - unobstructed by illegally parked vehicles that block the bike path.
He is not alone in reporting these parking violations. Thousands of people in Frankfurt report similar incidents and the number is rising in other cities too, according to a dpa survey of local authorities.
Cities such as Wuppertal and Bochum in the state of North Rhine-Westphalia are registering an increasing number of criminal complaints filed by members of the public, up from past years.
Often, a handful of people are responsible for the spike in reporting. The city of Bielefeld says more than half of these reports are coming from a single person.
Freiburg too says up to 40 people regularly report traffic violations - with some 10 forming a "hard core" who report incorrectly parked vehicles on almost a daily basis.
One young man calling himself the "chief reporting meister" is now making headlines nationwide for the sheer quantity of parking offences he reports.
That's inspiring others in a knock-on effect. Erfurt for example says three times as many citizens are now reporting traffic violations. Officials received 848 reports in March, compared to an average of 261 in the past five months.
Again, that is thanks to a smaller group of dedicated yet frustrated citizens. Two people generated most of those reports - one submitting 360, another 216.
Erfurt officials say they take a neutral view of this trend - but Berlin's police force is more critical, saying it adds up to more work.
Commitment to greater safety on the roads is to be welcomed in principle, they say - but each report has to be investigated.
"But reports from private individuals often lack technical knowledge and appropriate objectivity," says the press office.
The information has to be complete in order to be processed. "The reports therefore mean a considerable amount of extra work for the fines office."
The Berlin police refer to a 2013 ruling by a Lower Saxony court saying the police are not obliged to process reports sent in by the public if they are acting as self-appointed auxiliary investigators.
Individuals sent in some 34,300 reports to a Berlin site last year, up from 31,700 in 2022, the police say.
Frankfurt's Falko Görres says it is not his goal to generate a maximum number of parking offence reports. He does not go out hunting specifically to find offenders, just reports what he sees on his daily route through the city, he says.
Nor does he expect any personal gain, Görres says. "I don't see myself as an auxiliary policeman either, I just want myself and others to be able to get from A to B safely."
Parking at junctions is also a safety problem for pedestrians, he adds, as vehicles restrict their view of the road.
The issue looks set to stay. The Frankfurt authorities received 54,500 reports from private individuals last year, 200 fewer than in the previous year and 15,400 more than in 2021.
It is not a case of people denouncing others, according to the public order office - if only because the person submitting the report does not gain any advantage from doing so.
Germany is particularly sensitive to issues that whiff of denunciation, given the issue of people denouncing each other during National Socialism and mass surveillance in the former East Germany.
Görres uses sites available to the public to submit his reports and the city of Frankfurt has now set up a special website to speed up the process.
But capacity is a further problem for the authorities. In the past, reports sent in by the public were left unprocessed due to capacity issues.
Some 40% of of reports were processed in the fourth quarter of 2023 - though the new site is supposed to mean 100% will be processed, the authorities say.
Anything else would be very frustrating, says Görres, who is also an honorary city councillor for Die Partei, a German political party founded by the editors of a political satire magazine.
He hopes his dedication will eventually have visible effects.
Out on the road, though, the situation remains depressingly similar. He points to the road that weaves between the skyscrapers, showing how cyclists have to join the dense flow of traffic as a delivery van has parked on the cycle path.
Görres shows up and takes photos but the driver, unperturbed, keeps on unloading the van and bringing the delivery into a building.
Otherwise, there would have been two free parking spaces next to the cycle path.
The driver comes out, gets back in the van, gives the middle finger to Görres then drives off, almost causing an accident as he fails to spot a cyclist on his left.
"No one is ever understanding about this," says Görres. Drivers have shouted at him and even threatened to attack him in the past, he says.
Nonetheless, he plans to report the driver for obstructing the bike path, an offence that comes with a $70 fine.
