Somebody on YouTube tested those emergency hammers and concluded they're basically useless. If you really want to break a tempered glass car window (I.e., any of them but the windshield), their recommendation was an automatic center punch.

https://www.reddit.com/r/mythbusters/comments/130js6/breakin...

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L91_K-s4pMM

Automotive glass is not even glass really, it's more of a composite made up of layers of various transparent materials all designed to counter balance the weaknesses of the other layers. And windshields are bonded into the body of the vehicle with a very strong plastic adhesive.

Cruisers now tend to have cages to prevent this.

(This is not a solution if the car is underwater.)

1) Are you me? I've done exactly this because I knew that my car fit a 10' board. Turns out when you're buying rough lumber 10' sometimes means 10' 2".

2) The windshield is laminated glass instead of tempered. It'll crack much more easily, but it'll (more or less) stay in one piece in the frame instead of shattering out into a million tiny bits.

Wrong window. You're talking about the windshield which is a completely different type of glass than other windows.

That implies that there is no way to open the latch from inside and people, including me, may take that as the truth and not even try to find the latch. I for sure didn't know that there was a way.

However, I'm truly shocked that someone asked "how come in a movie...".

I know it sounds stupid to even ask that, but my question/concern came from that for someone who is not aware of such a thing, after watching movies I would have never even thought to look for it had I ever been in such a situation. Referring to also the story above about the women who was stuck in the car.

So, if all is true, then the movies in this case are doing a serious disservice. I know sounds naive and stupid to even ask that but most things function mostly as they do in real life, this to me seemed an odd exception.

Yes, modern cars have these pull tags in them. I don't know how new, but the first car that I bought new with a trunk was a 2007 model. It had them. They are even glow in the dark for easier locating in a closed/dark environment.

However, if you are ever in a real life situation trying to decide that the "movies" didn't do it this way is just a really bad way to be. Maybe the illusion/magic of Hollywood still holds for those not working in and around it, but nothing on a screen is real. Every thing presented on screen to you is there for a reason (even if what is on screen is omitting things). I've been in/around/through it for 30 years, so I could be jaded too.

Since I don’t make the point of putting myself in a trunk normally nor do I RTFM :(, my point, put in another way, was that if I had seen it in a movie I would have known that something like that exists. That is all.

I've seen cars flip and roll over and continue driving in a movie, yet I wouldn't expect my car to do that. I've seen modern cars get hot wired in a movie, yet I wouldn't be able to do to a modern car. I'm just saying you're putting way too much faith in movies my friend ;-)

Wait you’re telling me I can’t dodge bullets like they did in the Matrix… ;D

Thanks for the chuckle .. have a good one ..

If you're ever in the trunk of a moving vehicle, do what you can to sabotage the brake lights-- the wires are usually accessible and it increases the chances of attracting police attention.

Of course you can always open front doors.

Compressed air maybe, recharged by electric motor when available. Sounds like a reliability problem to me though.

The fact that the front doors both unlock when a single handle is pulled is because there's an electronic sensor and solenoid that unlocks everything when one handle is opened.

I had a Pontiac Vibe (really a Toyota Matrix) that had a cable in the door unlock assembly fail. You could open the door from the outside - the external door handle was physically the same part as the latch mechanism - but the external handle was back by your shoulder, while the internal handle was forward by the mirror and connected to the latch by a steel cable swaged to some aluminum pins; that connection eventually failed and the internal door handle flapped impotently.

I spent an embarrassing amount of time ignoring the problem and instead rolling down the window to open the door...

Regardless, it's not that much of a stretch to imagine that an automotive engineer might decide to replace cable actuator with a wire and solenoid.

Or with a bunch of CANBUS electromechanical hardware and some shittily written software running on the entertainment unit (with insecure cellular network connectivity).

I wonder how long before someone sets up unlockyourtoyota.ru where you can send them 0.01BTC to unlock the car you're stuck inside?

Low effort comment I know, but I had to let you know.

The fact that it's a russian site made my day. Russian hackers man...

I've noticed that on both our 1995 and 2014 Fords, when you pull the door handle it mechanically unlocks that door and opens it. (On the 2014 the other doors may additionally be triggered to unlock. However, in a no-power situation pulling the handle will still mechanically unlock just that one door.)

Here's a video describing how to use the manual overrides (none are in plain sight)... https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DLDqmGQU6L0

Here's a photo of thee door interior (with no mechanical door pull)... https://i.ebayimg.com/images/g/7I8AAOSwF-tgN5U1/s-l300.jpg

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Purvis_Eureka

I spent a lot of time helping build it.

He got the "electric roof" version, which had this awful hodgepodge for pneumatic rams, high pressure air hoses and couplings, and a seriously underpowered hydraulic pump - with instructions to fill the system with auto transmission fluid.

It was _not_ a well designed and reliable system, and some of the failure modes left the roof/door clamped down. He kept a pocket knife in th4e glovebox so you could stab the hoses to release the hydraulic fluid and manually push the roof open.

It wasn't until it failed closed while he was taking his girlfriend to the high school formal/dance, then ruined her dress by getting red auto trans fluid on it that he bit the bullet and threw all the supplied parts away and replaced it all with electric liner actuators...

I’ve always considered this a serious safety design flaw.

[0] Why? Why do kids do anything, really?

https://mechanics.stackexchange.com/questions/52480/is-the-d...

Unfortunately, this is not anymore warranted. Already in models of ten years ago, there do exist "full lock non mechanically overridable" and "lock which is unlocked through the handles". Disabling the "feature" requires intervention from the manufacturer - if it can be disabled at all.

Look, I am informed that in at least many of the current cars with RFID based keys, it is impossible to lock yourself in the car... (And the idea seems to have spawned from manufacturers coming from the territories in the world most notorious for carjacking.)

> the 2007 Corvette has a manual release located on the floorboard by the driver's seat

Having random cables cut doesn't help the situation, but the issue was not knowing how to manually release the latch and not having an emergency window breaker.

The problem is there is a door handle that is designed with a failure mode such that pulling the handle DOES NOT OPEN THE DOOR.

Design matters, and bad designs can literally be deadly. Why auto mfgs feel the need to "innovate" with shifter designs is beyond me. The worst part is how every mfg seems to be implementing a different design of bad electronic shifters, from wheels and touchscreens to one-click-at-a-time joysticks to single-function pushbuttons for some gears with others on a scroll wheel. They've taken something and made it worse with no benefit to the user. At least with those auto-flushing toilets, the intention was good, even if the implementation is still somehow so awful decades later.

My guess is that the dial costs less, so it is done for the company not the customer. Many cases of bad design come from prioritizing the manufacturer over the customer.

On my old Chevrolet Tahoe, I can tell what gear I just shifted into by feel (shifting into D, it has a slight tendency to overshoot the normal overdrive mode and end up locked into 3rd). And of course, this is essentially a nonissue on manual transmissions.

[edit]

Honestly if the rotary dial had similar tactile feedback, it would probably be fine. No worse than when they moved it off of the tree as bench seats were retired for safety reasons.

It's column shift despite bucket seats.

I've got news for you. My uncle worked in construction most his life. He told me the concrete isn't as good today as it used to be. He said in some places for shipping they "blow it around". Meaning you don't put it on a ship using a conveyor, you do something similar to blowing dust through a pipe? I never asked for more detail. He thought the handling was exposing it to humidity or in some way degrading the concrete. This would be another case of prioritizing cost/efficiency over the customer.

So even your humble concrete block might not be as good as they used to make em'

It also doesnt work at all if i am in tube, or when my building forgets to pay phone bill, or movike network craps out

Whatever benefits the tech firms and salespeople sold you (not literally you, anyone reading) on all this shit, if you have this stuff in your life I guarantee you your life is more stressful than mine because of it.

I'm to the point where I only buy used stuff period. Basically food and underwear have to be new. I don't think I've bought a brand new anything in over 5 years. I don't know if I ever will if this trend continues, proprietary single serve coffee pouches, internet connected stovetops, TVs that show ads separate from the broadcast, cars that track your movements and sell them to data brokers, touch screen everything, how many screens does a single person need?

Until, of course, it does.

They're literally engineering shit people don't need now. In virtually every product. And doing UI redesigns on things that change the user friendly UX, often breaking it.

I remember looking forward to browser updates, OS updates, the next generation hardware whatever. Things used to actually get better. I actually got a new phone the other day with a newer android version, never mind that there's a fucking hole in the screen, when I changed my screen brightness there was a deliberate animated delay to the brightness changing with the slider. Seriously, who the fuck is making decisions like this?

90% of things don't need to get more complex. A touch screen on a fridge, speakers in your car that get louder as you accelerate, Bluetooth speakers that need software updates, these are not improvements to the products in any real way whatsoever.

It’s sad he died but I found that handle in the first 5 minutes of owning my first corvette. It has a giant red picture of the door opening.

I did, on a 1980s car, since it was the normal door handle.

Emergency controls in vehicles with proper regulation look like this [2], so they can still be used in the dark, with smoke, etc.

[1] https://hhcorvettenewsletter.wordpress.com/2016/08/03/dont-l...

[2] https://railgallery.wongm.com/gold-coast-light-rail/F122_929...

Humans expect tools to be at arm height. Do not work against natural assumptions. If you increase cognitive load, that's that much more attention diverted in a state where attention is already maxed out or otherwise in shortage.

It can be the difference between life and death.

OSHA actually outlines the preference:

1) Eliminate the hazard outright (not possible here, you need the door to lock sometimes)

2) Engineer out the risk (they tried to do...poorly...with the manual unlock)

3) Administrative controls (e.g., the manual)

4) Personal protective equipment

Tip for readers: if your car has removable headrests, they can serve effectively as emergency window breakers.

You have to insert the metal rod between the bottom of the window and the door card and use leverage to pry at the window until it cracks

I am willing to bet my house that half the people who built that car would not find the lever if it suddenly caught fire (or any other emergency) while they are in it

Is it, is that really the issue?

It was the battery cable or similar, which cut power to all the electronic means of getting out - including the other door. It was not "cut" in the sense of someone using a knife, it just came loose or similarly broke contact. This is a design failure, not a RTFM failure.

Nope, not that model.

I had the chance to take one of the Fisker Karma development vehicles home from work. Everyone said it drove great. I got in and realized the door latch was a button. The whole car way prototype and development parts. The window was kinda small to crawl through. I said no thanks. There was a loop of string in the bottom of the door pocket to manually open it. Still nope.

For example, you don't want your kids to open the doors while you're driving. Or you don't want a car-jacker to reach through the window and open your door.

This is about whether pulling the door latch auto-unlocks the door, or if you have to unlock the door first before pulling the door latch.

For example to open the back you push a button on tailgate and then pull to open. That button is definitely not a mechanical latch, so if the battery is dead then you're not opening the tailgate.

This would be an interesting experience - go to an auto dealer and ask them to disconnect the battery, then see what still functions.

In this specific scenario, you still have a component failure. Something that was supposed to be connected wasn't. It would be nice if they designed a better fail safe but it's not a case of "corvette handles aren't designed to unlock."

My 2013 car has a physical lock pull, which the door lever is connected to, so the lock opens when you pull the lever to open the door.

Teslas have an (emergency?) mechanical release on their doors. At least the Model 3 does. Given that you can't 'lock from the outside' in the ordinary sense, if this law exists, there must be some leeway.

Happened to my friends at least a couple of times when giving them a ride. Imo, not a bad situation, because the worst case scenario here is that they will accidentally use an emergency release instead of the standard one on their first try, which will only trigger tesla to make a warning sound that the emergency release was used. Definitely works out better in a real emergency situation too, compared to cars with difficult to find emergency release handles, given people not familiar with Tesla doors tend to reach for the emergency handles in those by default at times.

If your trillion-ish dollar advertising company masquerading as a social network has doors that use electricity and dns lookups to open, you best make sure your office staff and data centre technicians know what to do when that fails...

When AAA tested 3 different hammers, only 1 of the three successfully broke tempered glass. All three punch style tools broke the tempered glass.

But a lot of car windows now have laminated glass. While the tools may be able to shatter the glass for those, they still stay in one sheet, (just like shattered windshields in most car, since those are laminated glass too). And it is really hard to break through that shattered but still intact sheet, with neither style of escape tool really being much help.

A quality rolling ballpoint pen would also work (given enough force) because it contains a small ball of tungsten carbide.

My knife also has a tungsten carbide window breaker on the base of it.

Death should not occur due to failure to design a door that can be opened from the inside in all situations without reading any manual.

I have a emergency hammer/seatbelt cutter near the gearstick just in case.

Curious how this is possible or was this just misreported?

The DeLorean (DMC-12) is known for having the lock solenoids that get stuck energized when a relay fails. Fortunately you can pull the relay to de-energize the solenoids. (Climbing out of a window on a DeLorean isn't an option for normal-sized people.)