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Joined 2 years ago
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Cake day: May 1st, 2024

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  • Seat belt jamming is so rare that neither the NHTSA nor the AAA track it as a statistic.

    As for the glassbreakers, here’s the big thing that most people don’t realize: They’re designed to break tempered glass, which is what most cars used to have for the side windows. However, modern safety regulations—specifically, the “Ejection Mitigation Rule” in the 2013 Federal Motor Vehicle Safety Standard 226 (FMVSS 226), mean that most manufacturers have transitioned to laminated glass for the side windows.

    Laminated glass (which is what the windshields were already made of) is tougher to break, and is now used to prevent occupants from being ejected through the side glass.

    An AAA research report tested six commonly-available glassbreakers. Not a single one of them was capable of breaking through laminated glass—and two of the tools couldn’t even break through tempered glass, but instead broke themselves. On the glass.