laser pens

[1gear]

Just had some little twat point one of these at me on the drive home from the GF's. Not nice when driving.
Aren't these banned? The chavs seemed to be standing on a side road pointing it at cars on the main road.
Just as I was entering a round-about around 100meters up the road a police car was heading that way. Hopefully they got the kids and shined it back in their eyes.
I thought these were hard to get hold of now. Is there one punishment for them? I know that shining them at aircraft can get you a heavy fine, if not some time in prison?

[andrew_s]

There's a 1mW power limit on laser pointers available for sale in the UK (and most of Europe).
Up to about 5mW is fairly safe as far as eye damage is concerned, at least for the red ones.

It's easy to order fairly high powered green laser pointers (100mW) from foreign parts via the interweb, and the chances of you getting found out are minimal.
Most people who have been prosecuted for using them were pointing them at aircraft (police helicopters etc), and were done for "recklessly endangering an aircraft". The law has since been amended to allow prosecution for "shining a light at an aircraft in flight so as to dazzle the pilot".
For cars (or anyone else) I doubt there is anything specific - common assault?

[rogerzilla]

I have a < 5mw Class III green one from eBay.  I actually bought it for its intended purpose, but it does throw an impressive beam at night.

[Giraffe]

There's a 1mW power limit on laser pointers available for sale in the UK (and most of Europe).
Up to about 5mW is fairly safe as far as eye damage is concerned, at least for the red ones.

It's easy to order fairly high powered green laser pointers (100mW) from foreign parts via the interweb, and the chances of you getting found out are minimal.
Most people who have been prosecuted for using them were pointing them at aircraft (police helicopters etc), and were done for "recklessly endangering an aircraft". The law has since been amended to allow prosecution for "shining a light at an aircraft in flight so as to dazzle the pilot".
For cars (or anyone else) I doubt there is anything specific - common assault?

Police helicopters could be fitted with a sort of reversed laser-aiming device: beam hit chopper, bullet goes straight to emitter - job done (until it's operated remotely).
Oh, I forgot, the litle scrotes have ooman roits; human beings don't.

[pdm]

misuse seems to be common, so much so that they have been banned in some parts of the world.

[Rhys W]

There are videos on youtube showing you how to replace the diode with one from a DVD recorder. You can ignite matches and burst balloons with those.

[Charlotte]

Want me one o' them there lightsabers 

[Rig of Jarkness]

Police helicopters could be fitted with a sort of reversed laser-aiming device: beam hit chopper, bullet goes straight to emitter - job done (until it's operated remotely).

This reminded me of this recent story from RAF Leuchars...' A migrant worker who shone a laser pen at a Tornado jet as it was trying to land at RAF Leuchers in Fife has been jailed for four months...He was caught after the navigator of the Tornado got a fix on the source of the intense light and passed the co-ordinates to police' 
BBC News - Man jailed in RAF Tornado jet laser pen case