Road rage brings assault and mischief charges

A man has been charged with assault and mischief after ripping a windshield wiper off another driver’s vehicle and shattering the back window in a fit of road rage caught on camera in North Vancouver.

The minute-long dash cam video was shared to YouTube on Tuesday and has since been viewed more than 48,000 times.

“Needless to say, how it escalated and where it got to was totally unacceptable,” North Vancouver RCMP Cpl. Richard De Jong told Postmedia News.

As the clip begins, a male driver can be seen getting out of a black Mitsubishi stopped at a red light to confront a younger male passenger getting out of an adjacent silver car stopped in the turn lane. While the pair face off, the woman driving the silver car also exits her vehicle to open and slam a door of the Mitsubishi.

The first driver, identified by police as a 40-year-old Vancouver man, then turns his attention to the woman, who retreats to her side of the vehicle.

The man then approaches the silver vehicle and begins to rip the windshield wiper from the silver car’s back window, shattering the glass in the process before returning to face the male passenger.

In retaliation, the woman reaches into her vehicle and grabs an unidentifiable object and launches it through the air at the other driver, but misses. She then goes into the back seat of the vehicle, grabs a second object and throws it, this time hitting the man in the head, causing him to lunge at her.

The passenger can be seen rushing around the front of the silver car to help the woman, as the vehicle containing the dash cam changes lanes and drives away through a green light.

According to police, there was a four-year-old child in the back seat of the silver car that was showered with glass after the wiper was torn off. The incident was broken up by another driver who walked up to the scene with a pipe of some sort and told the two parties to go their separate ways.

“The 911 calls were lighting up,” said De Jong of the reports that poured in from witnesses.

“Something happened several blocks prior to that, something very minor, but it escalated to yelling and screaming at each other and of course when they came to the red light they both decided to get out and duke it out.”

The driver has since been charged with assault and mischief to property. The couple in the silver car will not be charged.