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.
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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