Having watched a burly firefighter take three good swings with an axe to bust out a window (to get to the hood release of an unattended car fire), I am extremely skeptical of this claim.

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.

You’re supposed to do it like this: https://youtu.be/tZTa8Nh0VlE

This reminds me of the spark plug ceramic demos. Little ceramic tip on a spark plug (isolated from the rest of the plug) make an effective car window smashing projectile. No idea if it would work from inside the car / if you could get enough speed on it sitting right next to the window!

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

Technically it's not the tip of a spark plug, but a shard of the ceramic insulator when shattered- https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ninja_rocks

So they crush a spark plug to get the "rocks"? How?

Right. As a firefighter, I carried a spring-loaded center-punch in the pocket of my bunker coat. No muss, no fuss. Just put the tip on a side window and press until it fires.

Watch this... this made me realize how tough car windows really are:

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

He's hitting the base of the window with a blunt object. You don't want a blunt object.

Windshield even more so.

I believe your windshield is an integral part of your car's rollover protection

The Federal Motor Vehicle Safety Standards have a lot to say on the strength, composition, and properties of glass in passenger vehicles. In addition to being very difficult to break, it must also be resistant to shattering and remain in place while experiencing some pretty extreme forces.

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.

I'll admit not keeping up with the standards, but back around ~2003 it was pretty common for arrestees in police cars to escape custody by kicking the rear window out from inside the car. It's held on by glue or something and pops right off the frame in one solid piece.

Cruisers now tend to have cages to prevent this.

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

are these specs public somewhere? Sounds cool.

Sadly, no. Unlike some better fields, the auto industry is incredibly tight-lipped about safety and crash structures. If these in-formal standards were to get out... and if the public were to know how well the industry has cornered the regulators, creating pseudo-standards that technically conform to the safety protocols but functionally make zero difference to consumer/passenger safety... there'd be riots.

Depends if you are trying to break the window from the inside or the outside. It's very difficult from the outside, and much easier from the inside (I cracked my windscreen and needed a replacement, because I was carrying a long piece of wood and it moved a little and contacted the windscreen).

Two things:

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.

> Having watched a burly firefighter take three good swings with an axe to bust out a window (to get to the hood release of an unattended car fire), I am extremely skeptical of this claim.

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

He was trying to break the side window. Tempered glass is super tough, until you damage the outer layer. Presumably the pick end of his fire axe wasn't sharp or hard enough to scratch that outer layer without a hell of a swing behind it.

I have heard keeping a shattered sparkplug inyour car can help. Something about them auto-shatters glass.

I've carried a hatchet in my car for years for this reason.

breaking the windshield is the cheapest option to replace

Also in the "too late" vein, at least in the US, I believe cars are still required to have a latch to open the trunk from the inside. Not sure if other countries have these.

Serious question: So why are all the people who are trapped/kidnapped in the cars in the movies not able to come out and have to yell to have someone come and rescue them?

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.

For some reason, the law requires the latch to be removed if the car is in a movie ;)

The only person in the movies I'm aware of that went to jail for breaking the laws for removing tags was Pee-wee Herman.

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

> 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.

>So, if all is true, then the movies in this case are doing a serious disservice.

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.

I understand and not disagreeing with any of that.

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.

Honestly, the only reason I knew about mine was the salesperson at the dealership pointed them out to me. Maybe I had an exceptional sales rep?

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 ;-)

> 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 ..

While we're on the subject, silencers don't turn handguns silent, gas tanks don't explode when shot, and you can die from being buried chest-deep in sand

It's too dark to search for it, so you'd have to already know where the latch is at. I didn't know about keyless trunks until my ex-wife needed a jump and the battery was in the trunk, which could only be opened electronically or with the 'latch.' Google to the rescue!

All of the inner latches I’ve seen are made of glow in the dark material.

Most of the vehicles I've seen used for this purpose in movies are Oldsmobiles and such from the 70s-- long before the latches were a requirement. Modern car trunks are also way smaller than older sedans, which don't lend themselves to human transport.

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.

I don't know about US, but in my country many cars (most?) are equipped with child safety switches for back doors. It's accessible when door is open (it's on door's inner edge) and if it's locked, you can't open door inside. It's needed to prevent children from accidentally opening doors, but you can use this feature for kidnapping purposes.

Of course you can always open front doors.

because their hands are tied.

Not in all cases..

As far as I know this is widely disseminated across the world.

Front windshield is easy to brake from the inside. A gentle push with your feet will crack it. Some harder kicks will remove it for sure.

Yep, not much more than moulding holding it in.

Have you actually tried this?

Some cars (including mine) have a seat that’s just one unified unit. No way to remove it.