The driver of a company van who was filmed veering into large puddles and dousing pedestrians on King Edward Avenue in Ottawa on Friday has been fired, the driver’s employer announced on Sunday.
Rear-view dashcam footage posted to streaming site YouTube on Friday caught the white Black & McDonald van swerving into large puddles – seemingly deliberately – and splashing people walking on the sidewalk of the road in Sandy Hill.
The footage, time-stamped at around 3:30 p.m., showed the van splashing at least three pedestrians on King Edward, just east of the University of Ottawa campus.
In a Facebook post published Sunday afternoon, the contracting company apologized for the incident and for the van driver’s “unacceptable driving.”
“We want to reassure the public that safety is our #1 priority,” Black & McDonald wrote. “This is an isolated incident and the individual is no longer employed with Black & McDonald.”
A spokesperson for the Ottawa Police Service, who had been investigating the incident, said on Monday that no charges have been laid in the incident.
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Sgt. Mark Gatien also confirmed Sunday afternoon on social media that the driver had been “terminated from the company.” He thanked Black & McDonald for “their quick and decisive action” in a tweet.
As of early Monday afternoon, the dashcam footage on YouTube had been viewed more than 903,000 times.
The footage prompted a number of viewers to post scathing comments about the driver’s behaviour on Black & McDonald’s Facebook page over the weekend.
When asked by Global News what factors went into the decision to terminate the driver’s employment, Black & McDonald’s director of corporate marketing and communications said the driver “did not follow” the company’s “clearly established norms of personal conduct and procedures for the safe operation of a vehicle.”
The company has not identified the driver responsible.
— With files from Christopher Whan
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