Crackdown on Illegal Parking Urged by Bernson

Prompted by a recent fatal accident in Porter Ranch, City Councilman Hal Bernson called Friday for a crackdown on commercial vehicles illegally parked on city streets and freeway overpasses.

Emily Pilkinton, a 17-year-old junior from Granada Hills High School, died from injuries suffered in the May 9 accident. She was a passenger in a car that struck a parked moving van on the Wilbur Avenue bridge over the 118 Freeway.

Police say the driver of the car, also 17, might have had her vision obscured by balloons the girls were transporting.

But Bernson said the moving van should not have been parked on the bridge. City law prohibits motorists from leaving any vehicle parked on a bridge and bans commercial vehicles from being parked on city streets more than three hours.

“The possibility exists that if the commercial moving van was not illegally parked on the freeway overpass, the accident would not have occurred or that it would not have had such tragic results,” Bernson said.

The councilman asked the LAPD and city transportation officials to “institute a vigorous enforcement effort to cite and impound all commercial vehicles observed in violation” of the law.

The motion also directs the LAPD to cite the owner of the parked van involved in an accident and submit the investigation to the district attorney’s office for possible criminal charges.

Bernson said before the May 9 accident his office had received complaints of four commercial vehicles, including the one involved in the May 9 accident, parked on bridges in his north San Fernando Valley district.

“This is not an unusual complaint,” Bernson said.

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The LAPD issues nearly 1,000 citations annually to commercial vehicles parked on city streets, according to Sgt. Don Harris of the department’s commercial enforcement unit.

“They are a tremendous hazard because trucks are so high and they restrict visibility,” Harris said.

Police lack authority to impound trucks when a citation is issued, but Bernson called for legislation allowing immediate confiscation.