Driver hit by laser in road rage case

Victim was temporarily blinded by light

Fraser Valley Traffic Services are seeking two suspects in a laser assault on Highway 1 last month that temporarily blinded a driver in an apparent road rage incident.

Police say the suspects could eventually face a variety of charges, including assault causing bodily harm and, potentially, assault with a weapon.

“These ( lasers) are not illegal to possess, but it’s a matter of how they’re used,” said Lower Mainland District RCMP spokesman Sgt. Peter Thiessen on Tuesday. “( The victim) could have lost control, been seriously injured or killed.”

Police said the victim was westbound in the left lane of the highway at 4 p. m. Feb. 27 at No. 3 Road near Cultus Lake, when a greyish Audi with B. C. licence plates pulled up beside her in the right- hand lane.

Both the driver of the Audi, a woman with dark hair in her early 20s, and her passenger, a man in his 20s with a large build and fair hair shaved on the side, gave the victim the finger. The driver then flashed her high beams several times.

Police said the Audi then pulled in front of the other vehicle and the male passenger stood up and stuck his head through the sun roof and spat on the victim’s windshield.

He then pointed a green laser through the Audi’s rear window at the victim’s eyes, temporarily blinding her.

The victim may have sustained eye damage.

Thiessen said that while the illegal use of lasers has been an issue for pilots of airplanes and helicopters, it’s rare for one to be used against other drivers.

Thiessen cited a case in which a Langley man pleaded guilty last year to endangering the safety of an RCMP helicopter crew by deliberately pointing a hand- held laser beam at the aircraft in 2011.

There have been dozens of incidents over the past decade or so of lasers being directed at commercial, private and police aircraft in flight in B. C.

In July 2008, a Calgary man was fined $ 1,000 after pleading guilty to shining a laser beam into the cockpit of an Air Canada flight carrying 20 passengers — one of the first convictions in Canada.

Anyone with information about the road rage incident is asked to call Const. Lee Keane of the Fraser Valley Traffic Services at 604- 8691397 or Crime Stoppers at 1- 800- 222- TIPS.