By-Law Control Officers - Approach & Controls

In the past month I've seen two incidents which make me wonder about the training and oversight of Ottawa's By-Law control officers.

The first involved my neighbour, a mild mannered elderly gentleman who speaks neither English or French. In the process of jockeying vehicles he had reversed incompletely into another neighbours driveway so that his vehicle crossed the sidewalk.

A passing By-Law officer took exception to a running vehicle stopped across the sidewalk, even though my neighbour was obviously moving between one vehicle and another. Surely a running vehicle has the right to pause or stop across a sidewalk - as that's often a necessity to safely enter traffic.

When I came outside I heard the officer say he was going to issue a ticket "because of his (my neighbours) behaviour" - as if there's By-laws on behaviour .

I thought that was an aberration but today I had a similar experience. I was stuck behind a timid driver at a T junction. For three lights they wouldn't enter the intersection - though their was room to - because drivers going straight through partially blocked the intersection during our light. By the time I jumped out of my car to urge the driver to nose forward there were 20+ cars and people honking as we waited through a fourth light.

A By-Law office stopped and asked if there was a problem - "no just trying to get traffic to move" - "You're the one blocking traffic" was his immediate accusation - delivered in a threatening tone.

To me both these incidence point to training and oversight issues.

I've asked my councillor after the first incident to provide a link to the By-law department abuse complaints process. Of course I'm still waiting - likely because there is no policy or oversight - which means these types of issues will continue.