The article glides over the fact that FMVSS 226 is a performance standard, not a materials mandate. Manufacturers can stick with tempered glass if they beef up the side curtain airbags enough to prevent ejection, which is exactly what happens on a lot of base models and rear windows to keep BOM costs down. The list of brands using laminated glass is accurate, but it applies mostly to their premium trims or front rows only.
There is also the issue of fleet turnover. With the average age of US vehicles pushing 13 years, the install base is still overwhelmingly tempered glass. Writing off the tool entirely because new luxury cars have moved on ignores the reality of what people are actually driving. You are statistically much more likely to be trapped in a 2012 Civic than a 2025 S-Class.
It did cover that. And half the tools couldn’t break the tempered glass either.
The smartest thing to do would be to check your car’s windows for any indication (the AAA report, page 19, cited in the article has examples) of whether they’re laminated or tempered. AFAICT, whether my new-ish Subaru Ascent’s windows are laminated depends on location (front or rear) and installation differs between the Ascent trims. Best to check for your specific car and where you’re likeliest to be sitting.
> The article glides over the fact that FMVSS 226 is a performance standard, not a materials mandate.
Nope. The article states the following just after the table:
> It's true that not all automakers have switched over to laminated glass for the side windows; the FMVSS 226 law stipulates that you can get around it if you install elaborate side airbags that also prevent ejection.
Have a crowbar handy. It's known to be useful in a variety of situations, including a literal space alien assault.
But also don’t leave it loose in your vehicle. A crowbar hitting your head in a car accident does not sound like a good time.
Better than a gnome rattling around in the car.
True. But I fail to see the relevance.
I assume this is the relevance:
https://half-life.fandom.com/wiki/Garden_Gnome
It’s another Half-Life reference
A small charge of C4 works wonders. Just be sure to lay your head over in the passenger seat before detonation.
I carry a small hatchet in the trunk of my car with the spare tire just for this reason.
We're gonna need a source on that one.
Victorinox tried to address this with this tool, not sure how successful https://www.victorinox.com/en-DE/Products/Swiss-Army-Knife%E...
404. This one, perhaps?
https://www.victorinox.com/en-DE/Products/Swiss-Army-Knife%E...
Not found
Simple. Just make sure you test your glass breaker on your car side window before you drive off the road or bridge into a deep lake.
You can just carry the Ripper.
Whats weird is that I know of at least 8 “modern cars” 2018+ that all have had cracked windshields.
3 of them are mine, my 2002 car has taken huge rocks like a champ…
Its big glass im telling you, esp because the recalibration stuff for Assistive Steering is like 7-800 bucks.
Similar experience with a 2010 Honda Odyssey, drove it for 10 years and never saw a crack even though I'm sure it took a beating.
Then we got a 2022 Passport and I swear every single trip has a new crack or chip. I was surprisingly fortunate to be talked into the windshield warranty as the sales guy has been through this exact thing and replacing these windshields with assistive tech is expensive. That warranty has already paid for itself and more including once full windshield replacement.
> the recalibration stuff for Assistive Steering is like 7-800 bucks
Yeesh at that point I'd just be buying a Comma.
None of these glass breakers are any good at what they're supposed to do anyways, I'd wager all of their websites delinate that they are for tempered glass only. What you want is porcelain or ceramic.
Unfortunately, afaik, porclean/cermaic glass breakers are illegal in most states. They are "Burglary Tools".
Nothing wrong with keeping a box of spark plugs in your center console though
I fail to see how any of your suggestions are going to do any better on laminated glass. Breaking the glass isn’t the problem here, it’s the lamination.
A ceramic glass breaker isn't going to be any better than the metal tools on laminated glass, breaking the glass is only half the battle, you've still got to get through the intact glass pane held in place by the plastic laminate.
>Nothing wrong with keeping a box of spark plugs in your center console though
But then you've got to keep a tool to break the spark plug to give you a sharp ceramic shard to get through the glass.
Exactly. It’s the plastic middle layer that screws you.
That old spark plug thing was from when cars had tempered side windows, wasn't it? I don't see how those would be particularly effective at dealing with lamination.
Broken spark plugs are also known as "ninja rocks," for what it's worth. Also considered illegal burglary tools in some states.
Would a spark plug work on laminated glass?
What are the police to do when some insane sovcit refuses to exit the car over a speeding ticket? Those windows aren’t going to break themselves.
Not sure about the "car falls into the lake" scenario, but I know some women who carry these for fear of a crazed Uber driver who might lock them in the car.
The crazy Uber drivers would replace their windows with plexiglass if that caught on.
Your threat model is incoherent.
> "The fantasy being peddled by the toolmakers is: You will crash, remain conscious, find that your car has burst into flame or is slowly sinking in water, find that you cannot undo your seatbelt, yet are still able to reach for this specialty tool, slice through your seatbelt, then smash the window open and climb free to safety."
Uh huh... Now consider this scenario; you lose control and crash into a tree. You are out and your car catches fire. Who gets to the scene first? Firefighters, or probably just whichever randos happened to be right there when it happened? Probably the later. Probably for the best if one of them is able to break your window and pull you out.
I wonder why is this not part of the standard safety tests. It can be done before a crash test, for instance.
Exiting through a window is probably not a common case. Or even entering from outside to retrieve a person.
I think likely much better would be to mandate solution that forces doors to fully unlock in case of a crash or large water ingress.
What exactly are you proposing gets tested? The windows are supposed to be hard to break so people don’t fly out of them…
Hard enough to not fly out accidentally but weak enough that people can break them on purpose so they're not trapped inside.
I think there's an impossibly thin line between making glass that's easy to break through on purpose, but hard for a high speed head to break through in an accident.
That's what seat belts are for. Making unbreakable glass is morally repugnant.
This law is intended to protect belted occupants as well. The target here is rollover crashes where belted occupants may still be jostled partially free from the belt and be partially ejected.
Not relevant. Safety designs that kill people are indefensible.
This is literally the logic anti-seatbelt folks use. “I don’t wear a seatbelt because if I’m in a crash, the seatbelt could end up trapping me in a fire.”
Safety design very often involves trade offs. The chances you get partially ejected and killed during a rollover are meaningfully higher than the chances you die because you can’t break the glass to get out. Do you even keep a glass breaker in your car or do you imagine after surviving a wreck that’s trapped you inside your car that you will have the strength to just punch through a glass window?
So no fast rescue of children and dogs in cars in the summer heat anymore
oh just get Franz von Holzhausen to throw a ball bearing at it
Useful tech post!