Following the alleged sexual assaults of two women, Ottawa police are warning women to take extra precautions when travelling alone in the city at night.
On Nov. 2, a 17-year-old woman reported that she was sexually assaulted in Sandy Hill. Police are still continuing their investigation.
A week later, a 20-year-old woman was allegedly sexually assaulted, after hailing a Blue Line cab at 2:30 a.m. on Bank Street.
“We can understand why after recent events women would feel unsafe travelling home alone, but we do not recognize these two sexual assaults as a trend,” says Const. Marc Sourcy,
“It has been seen before, but it isn’t a trend. A taxi usually means safety, so it is a traumatising incident. If women do feel unsafe, there are things they can do to feel more at ease,” he says.
The police recommend people stay in well-lit areas when travelling home at night and if travelling alone to ensure they always tell somebody else where they are going.
“If you don’t feel safe, for any reason, you can always call the police and we can help,” says Sourcy.
“We are very concerned,” says Hanif Patni, CEO of the Coventry Connections taxi cabs, “Sexual assault is the highest on the scale of potential issues for us, and the number one we rally against.”
Coventry Connections own 19 taxi fleets in Ottawa including Blue Line, DJs and Capital taxi, and have around 15,000 individual cars.
“We carry around 25,000 passengers a day. Sexual assault is a very rare incident, in a year we receive probably less than ten complaints,” Patni says.
Taxi cabs have a rooftop sign that has a number on it, the number inside the cab should correspond with the number on the rooftop sign, which is one indication that the taxi is licensed. If there is an incident with a taxi driver, a person can quote that number to identify the driver. There are also infrared cameras in each vehicle which snap images every second.
In addition, taxi companies and the police are both equipped with technology to identify a particular cab, so they are always aware of which drivers are taking which passengers.
Jennifer Burgh, 22, recently moved to Centretown from the United Kingdom. She says that Ottawa is one of the safest places she’s lived.
“I work in a bar downtown so I often have to travel home alone late at night,” she says. “I feel safe doing so. Late at night particularly on busy nights like Fridays and Saturdays, I often see police patrolling the streets, it makes me feel safer.
“The recent news shocked me, it was pretty horrifying, but I think a vast majority of cab drivers are just there to do their job,” Burgh says.