diff --git a/lib/webrat/selenium/location_strategy_javascript/label.js b/lib/webrat/selenium/location_strategy_javascript/label.js
index 501fea1a..4352fefc 100644
--- a/lib/webrat/selenium/location_strategy_javascript/label.js
+++ b/lib/webrat/selenium/location_strategy_javascript/label.js
@@ -1,7 +1,20 @@
+RegExp.escape = function(text) {
+  if (!arguments.callee.sRE) {
+    var specials = [
+      '/', '.', '*', '+', '?', '|',
+      '(', ')', '[', ']', '{', '}', '\\'
+    ];
+    arguments.callee.sRE = new RegExp(
+      '(\\' + specials.join('|\\') + ')', 'g'
+    );
+  }
+  return text.replace(arguments.callee.sRE, '\\$1');
+}
+
 var allLabels = inDocument.getElementsByTagName("label");
+var regExp = new RegExp('^\\W*' + RegExp.escape(locator) + '(\\b|$)', 'i');
 
 var candidateLabels = $A(allLabels).select(function(candidateLabel){
-  var regExp = new RegExp('^' + locator + '\\b', 'i');
   var labelText = getText(candidateLabel).strip();
   return (labelText.search(regExp) >= 0);
 });