GLASGOW — If you've ever been on a road trip when nature calls, you know finding a bathroom is only half the battle.
The other question: What are you going to find when you walk through the door?
A Glasgow father of four is hoping to take some of the guesswork out of that universal dilemma with Potty Police, an app that helps travelers find and review public restrooms.
WATCH: THE ORIGINS OF THE 'POTTY POLICE' APP
For founder Matthew Stevenson, the idea was born during years of family road trips between Montana, North Dakota and Minnesota.
As Stevenson and his wife traveled with young children, they repeatedly encountered gas stations without changing tables — sometimes forcing them to change diapers in the front seat of their vehicle.
"We'd go to a gas station, no changing table, and I'd keep changing my baby's diaper, or my wife would change the baby's diaper on the front seat," Stevenson said.
Eventually, the frustration got old.
"There's got to be a way to figure this out where you're not just rolling the dice," Stevenson said. "You're playing essentially bathroom roulette."
The idea for Potty Police stuck with him for about five years.
Stevenson isn't a professional app developer and said he initially wasn't in a position to spend a large amount of money having someone build the idea for him.
As artificial intelligence tools became more accessible, however, Stevenson began experimenting with how they could help him turn his idea into a working product.
"It took months and months of time to just figure out, okay, how can I use AI to implement this type of code so I can build this idea?" he said.
More than a funny idea
There was also something deeper pushing Stevenson to finally see the project through.
His mother died from cancer in 2024. Then, last summer, Stevenson lost his father.
He said those losses brought grief, but also a new perspective on how much time we have to pursue the things that matter to us.
"It got to that point where I realized that I'm not going to be here all the time, and if I have an idea, it's worth pursuing," Stevenson said.
He is careful not to characterize those losses as the reason he built Potty Police. Instead, he said they gave him clarity about an idea that had been sitting with him for years.
"What could it have been?" Stevenson said of the question he didn't want to someday ask himself. "A lot of tragedy brought me to a place where I wanted to pursue an idea that just sat on my heart for a while."
Much of the work happened during nights away from his family, after Stevenson finished his regular workday.
For a while, he didn't even tell his children exactly what he was building. He waited until Potty Police was available in the app stores before revealing the project.
Stevenson said seeing his children embrace the finished product made those late nights especially rewarding.
"When the kids support it, that created a different moment for me too," he said. "They see that with hard work, there are sometimes not great results, sometimes great results."
He also credits his wife for supporting the project through the many nights he spent working on it.
Knowing before you go
Potty Police allows users to locate bathrooms and provide information about what they'll find when they arrive.
Users can identify amenities including changing tables, hands-free washing, air dryers and paper towels. The app also includes features geared toward truck drivers, including information about showers, overnight parking and truck-friendly fuel pumps.
Stevenson hopes the community-driven reviews become more useful as more people contribute.
"It's not just for the mom and dad that are traveling. It's for everybody," Stevenson said.
Businesses can also participate through what Stevenson calls Triple P — Potty Police Preferred Business, allowing them to highlight their facilities and respond when problems identified by users have been addressed.
And despite the serious work that went into building the app, Stevenson isn't shying away from its inherently silly subject matter.
"It's supposed to be fun. Supposed to be funny," he said. "Obviously you want a good bathroom, but there's humor. It's the bathroom, for Pete's sake."
Even the app's most active users can work their way through a series of tongue-in-cheek ranks.
The highest honor?
Chief of the Commode.
Potty Police is available on both the Apple App Store and Google Play Store. Stevenson said it is free to download with ads, with a paid Pro option also available.
After five years of thinking, tinkering and late nights, Stevenson said seeing the app finally go live was both scary and satisfying.
"I wouldn't change it," he said. "It's been remarkable."
And if enough travelers join his patrol, Stevenson hopes fewer families will have to play "bathroom roulette" on their next road trip.
