As I was driving home on I-880 after visiting a friend tonight, another vehicle threw up a rock and put a crack in the windshield. At 65 MPH that makes quite a loud noise; it startled me and at first I didn’t realize what had happened. There goes another few hundred bucks. Sigh.
I suppose I should just be happy that safety glass works so well. Imagine the results if conventional glass were used! I probably would have received many cuts, possibly lost an eye, and if I lost control of the vehicle as a result, maybe even wound up dead.
It depends on what you call “safety glass”. Here in Germany – and propably in the rest of Europe, too – we had a “safety glass” about 30 years ago (1970′s). It broke into little pieces about 5mmx5mm when breaking. Wounds due to cuts were dramatically reduced. But there were some disadvantages: If only a tiny portion of the wind-shield was shattered/hit the whole shield disintegrated into these 5x5mm pieces, effectually blocking all sight. You could destroy that “shield” by simply knocking it down like a Lego-wall – without injuries – but until then you were basically blind.
I had an accident of this kind in the early 1980′s (with the old “sequrity glass”) and I appreciate the new one with the plastic layer(s) between the glass panes. My current car has 2 “wounds” on the wind-shield , but it is still doing its job.
Remark: We have the TÃœV here in Germany and this instsitution is there (among a few other, but they have to be acredited, too) to ensure/test the safety of cars (among a lot of other things). But, as my damages lie outside the region the wipers sweep these damages are tolerated. This raises the question: why are they not tolerated at all? They are only minor specks in the field of view.