BBC Young Reporter @ LCS

A powerful laser from far away

Lasers pens are gimmicks: the idea is that you can point a laser wherever you want. But what about the dangerous things you can do with one? Recently, a large amount of people have used laser pens in dangerous ways. For example, a search and rescue team had a laser pen shone in their eyes when they were trying to find someone in a river. The light bounced around the cockpit and could have fatally damaged any of the crew’s eyes. Also, Gatwick airport had to close because of laser pens a few months ago. Hundreds of flights were cancelled and thousands of passengers didn’t get to fly to their destination. This cost thousands of pounds and lots of time to fix the problem and stop it happening again. Lasers are extremely dangerous and can permanently harm someone’s eyes, making them half blind, or disrupting their eyesight.

Many people are asking for laser pens to be made illegal, as now it is only illegal to use or intend to use one in a public area. It is also a serious offence to shine one at a plane, a car, or any other vehicle. “Laser pens should not be used apart from the military, as they could use a device such as this.” Umaiza, a year 7 pupil at Littleover Community School told me.

Overall, laser pens are very dangerous and scientists believe that they are only safe when they are at a 1mw power, as there has been no reported incidents when they are at this low a power level. There is no way to stop people from doing this and laser pen incidents are getting more and more frequent.