A year after boy was killed by dump truck, Overbrook residents are still waiting for new safety measures

More than a year later, Kathleen Sauder says she sometimes still sees the face of young Jaxson Mansfield-O’Brey when she closes her eyes.

It was just after 4 p.m. on Oct. 15, 2025, when she stepped outside her home and had to call 911 after seeing the five-year-old boy and his bike pinned underneath the front tire of a dump truck on Presland Road.

The young boy’s death sent shockwaves through the community in the days after the incident, as residents renewed calls for the need to make the road safer for the many kids who travel along it on foot and on their bikes every day.

Sauder was even inspired to put up a hand-made sign on her lawn, pleading drivers to slow down.

Yet, walk down Presland Road a year later, and residents say the young boy’s death has yet to spark any visible improvements, like speed bumps or speed limit reductions.

“After a year, nothing’s really happened,” Sauder said. “Like, do you want another kid … to get hit before you do something?”

According to court documents obtained by the Ottawa Citizen, Concorde Properties Inc. and Kane Construction Group Inc. are facing charges under the Occupational Health and Safety Act in relation to the Oct. 15, 2025 collision.

The charges reflect the “facts as alleged that is, that a vehicle was reversed while the operator’s view was obstructed in the absence of a signaller to assist the operator,” senior Crown counsel David McCaskill confirmed in an email.

Court documents indicate the case is ongoing and is being heard in front of a judge, with the next court date set in November.

To date, Ottawa police have not issued any public updates in relation to the incident. A police spokesperson cited an ongoing investigation when asked if there was any further information police could provide.

The Ottawa Citizen reached out to Concorde Properties Inc. and Kane Construction Group Inc. for comment on the charges, but neither responded for comment in time for publication.

While speed may not have necessarily been a factor in Jaxson’s death, neighbours say reducing vehicle speed is the most important way to ensure kids stay safe on the road and prevent future tragedies from happening.

Local resident Cody Card said he watches cars fly down Presland Road at high speeds every day, causing him to have serious conversations around road safety with his kids.

“I don’t like them crossing the road,” he said. “I tell them to stay back and be very cautious here … pay more attention and never trust that the car is going to stop. This community is dangerous.”

Aya Jasim, who said her son went to kindergarten with Jaxson, said she still has to field questions about: “When is Jaxson coming?”

“I am scared all summer,” she said, adding she keeps the door locked to make sure her kids can’t play on the front lawn when she’s not keeping an eye on them.

And residents say it’s only a matter of time before another incident happens, especially with the number of young kids in the area, some even travelling on e-scooters without helmets on.

“You see really, really young children running around, completely unsupervised, running across the street hardly looking both ways,” Card said. “It’s just going to happen again.”

According to Rideau-Rockcliffe Coun. Rawlson King, whose ward includes the Overbrook community, it’s not always as simple as just asking the city for speed bumps or other improvements to be installed.

“I understand the impatience of residents who want to see more traffic-calming measures, because it’s almost an epidemic in terms of people speeding through neighbourhoods,” he told the Ottawa Citizen.

He said Presland Road was already on the city’s radar even prior to Oct. 15, 2025, and is currently undergoing a traffic study, with delineators — the flex poles bolted into the middle of the road — installed in 2024 in response to community safety concerns.

But in 2025, the delineators were removed to accommodate ongoing construction. Since the poles are seasonal and are typically reinstalled each spring, they returned to Presland Road in May 2026.

“And because of that, there wasn’t a full evaluation,” he said. “We want to still get a full evaluation to see, OK, do these measures fully work (and) are they actually reducing speeds in something that is quantifiable and measurable, and if they’re not, then what’s the next step?”

The traffic evaluation will continue to review speeds, collect data and evaluate the measures to determine if more traffic-calming measures, such as speed bumps, should be installed.

“I wouldn’t say you’re waiting 10 years for a (traffic-calming) measure, but there is a process, and the process also involves evaluation,” he said.

The 2025 construction on Presland Road was also to implement measures to improve pedestrian safety, including a new concrete sidewalk along Presland Road and Hardy Avenue between Frances Street and Bernard Street, new crosswalks and curb ramps at the Frances Street all-way stop, as well as a street reduction width near Hardy Avenue from 8.5 to seven metres.

But residents say the delineators and recent construction upgrades haven’t been effective in slowing traffic, with cars going at high speeds preferring to run over the delineators rather than slow down.

“The (delineators) in the middle … that doesn’t stop anybody, so they hit it with their cars,” Sauder said.

But, King said road safety goes beyond traffic calming, adding he directed city staff to investigate the risks associated with bringing construction vehicles into residential neighbourhoods. His formal inquiry submitted one week after the Oct. 15, 2025 collision asked staff who regulates these construction vehicles, what are the safety protocols contractors must follow near schools and parks, as well as whether near-miss collision data is tracked.

Now, he’s calling on the city to better plan construction vehicle access and haul routes, consider restrictions during school travel periods, enforce traffic control measures and identify dangerous conditions before a collision happens.

The Presland Road community will also soon be thrust back into construction, King said, with Presland Park currently undergoing the design phases of a renewal project. Pedestrian safety, he promised, won’t be an afterthought, and designs will consider how families access the park, including from Presland Road.

“We cannot assess the safety of these projects solely by looking at the finished infrastructure. We must also consider how residents, particularly children, are protected throughout construction,” he said.

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