Cinder block thrown from overpass onto car

By Dan Hilborn
Published Dec. 24, 2003


Lisa Young was driving on the Kensington overpass around 6:30 p.m. on Dec. 16 when something very large and very scary suddenly hit the hood of her car.

Thud! went the object - which left a big dent on her 1998 Infinity 2x4 before bouncing onto the pavement.

Unsure of exactly what had happened, Young smartly pulled over to the side of the road and paused to make sure she was all right. Then she looked through her rearview mirror to find a "large, white object" lying in the middle of the road.

She called 911 and spoke to a police dispatcher who determined that she was not injured and her vehicle was still drivable. Young was told to go home and file a claim with her insurance company.

But Young also believes that the public deserves a warning about somebody who threw a large concrete block off the high retaining wall along the side of the busy highway overpass.

"I was driving around the corner going north when all of a sudden something just fell right on me. Right on top of me. I heard a bang - a loud bang," she said.

The object was a 10-inch block of cement that could easily have gone through her windshield, causing either serious injury or possibly even her death.

"I think somebody threw it, but I just don't know," she said. "I was lucky I wasn't injured, but this could happen to anyone."

Young is also unsure of what to do next.

She is frustrated by the response she received from the Burnaby RCMP. "I was hoping they'd come and check on me," Young said. "But they just put me on hold for a while, and when they found out I had no injury, all they could do was ask me to drive home and give me a file number."

Young plans to call Burnaby city hall to try to encourage them to take action to prevent this kind of incident from happening again.

"I want them to get a higher fence. Right now the chain link fence at the top of the retaining wall is not high enough," she said. "And maybe they could block the walkway."

But mostly, Young wants to warn her neighbours about a reckless prankster in their midst who is threatening other people's lives.

"Whoever drives around in that area has to be careful," she said. "It's not like a typical overpass where you can see if somebody is standing over top of you. This is on a hillside, where people walk down the path to catch the SkyTrain.

"I've lived around here since 1985 and have never heard of this sort of thing happening. I just feel it's very unsafe.

"It seems anywhere you go these days it's unsafe, but having lived in this area for so long, I wouldn't expect this kind of thing to happen. Why would somebody do such a thing? It's scary. And like I said, I was lucky that nothing more serious happened."

Anyone with information on this incident is asked to call the Burnaby RCMP non-emergency number at 604-294-7922.