PITTSBURGH — 11 Investigates discovered that a driver was ticketed for parking on a road during street cleaning. There was one big problem: her car wasn’t parked there.
Chief Investigator Rick Earle found out that the driver has the picture to prove it.
The picture is actually on the citation Poli Biswas received from the Pittsburgh Parking Authority.
Biswas: This side, as you can see from the sign there, is Tuesdays, [which] is when street cleaning happens, but the ticket is issued for August 18th, which is a Monday.
Earle: So, they gave you a ticket for parking here, and it wasn’t street cleaning day?
Biswas: Not on that day, no.
She told Earle that she received a $30.00 ticket for parking on Home Street on a Monday in Lawrenceville on street cleaning day.
But the citation actually shows her car on the other side of the street, which is cleaned on Tuesdays.
In the citation photo, you can also clearly see a fence in the picture, and a satellite dish on the right, proving that her picture is on the side that’s cleaned on Tuesday.
Biswas’ car is right there next to the fence and the satellite dish, and the sign on that side of the street says street cleaning is on Tuesday.
The ticket was issued for a Monday violation, and the citation actually listed an address on the other side of the street, where street cleaning is done on Monday, while the photo shows her car on the other side of the street.
“I don’t know if it’s the new camera system they’re using. I’m not sure, but clearly a mistake was made and no one has acknowledged or apologized,” said Biswas.
Biswas took pictures and documented everything.
She went online to the authority’s website and filed a dispute.
She told Earle she thought her case was a slam dunk.
To her surprise, she received a letter upholding the ticket.
“I was shocked and angry and frustrated,” said Biswas.
She appealed the decision to parking court and had to take time off work, and even pay to park Downtown.
After hearing from Biswas and examining the evidence, the judge agreed to dismiss the ticket.
But Biswas said she wanted more, especially since the court refused to dismiss her ticket after she filed the online dispute.
“I made up my mind that I was going to ask them for reimbursement for my out-of-pocket expense, which is essentially what they would ask for if they had won, and the judge’s response was ‘Yeah, that’s not going to happen,’ and that’s when I got very angry and thought ‘This isn’t right,’” said Biswas.
We took her concerns to Parking Authority Executive Director Dave Onorato.
“I’m looking into that and I will get back with you as soon as I find out,” said Onorato.
Onorato did get back to us that same day.
He said the camera on the parking authority vehicle picked up the wrong car after making a turn.
And he said the error should have been detected during a manual review, but was not.
Earle: And you wonder how many other people got caught in this and didn’t do what you did?
Biswas: 100 percent.
Earle: A lot of people probably say I’ll just pay it, it’s $30.00, no big deal.
Biswas: Right, so how much money are they making off this?
The authority just started using a vehicle-mounted camera to capture street cleaning violators earlier this year.
Onorato told Earle that they had some issues with the cameras early on, but they thought that had all been worked out.
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