The Window-Smashing Tool That Could Save Your Life

I'm Rosie Garen and you're listening to The Wirecutter Show.

Today we're doing one of those bonus episodes about something scary but we think pretty important.

We're talking about tools that can help you break out of your vehicle in the event of an emergency.

The data we have shows that civilian traffic fatalities resulting from fires or drowning are a small fraction of total motor vehicle accident deaths.

But still, this limited risk has led to a whole class of tools marketed to save your life in the event of this kind of an emergency.

I personally have seen loads of these ads come across my social media for these brightly colored plastic wands and key chains that are meant to help you break the glass of your car window and free you from a wrecked fiery or flooding car.

And the ads themselves are kind of scary.

But do these tools actually work? That's what my colleague Jen Gushu wanted to know.

This is an editor covering emergency preparedness here at Wirecutter and last year they headed out to a fire station in Connecticut to break some glass.

And we sent along our producer Abigail to capture some of the sandwich.

The most important thing Jen found out is that not all car windows or window breakers are created equal.

So when we come back, we're going to hear from Jen about what you need to know about your car before you buy one of these tools.

And of course, which ones Wirecutter recommends will be at Beck.

This podcast is supported by BP.

Behind every BP fill up, thousands of people across America go to work every day.

From the people producing oil and gas in the Gulf today, to those discovering resources will need tomorrow, to the people refining our fuels.

All the way to the people who help you at one of BP's family of retail stations.

They're part of around 300,000 U.S. jobs BP supports across the country.

See all the ways BP is driving American energy forward at bp.com slash investing in America.

This podcast is supported by better Medicare Alliance.

More than 35 million seniors rely on Medicare Advantage for coordinated care, lower costs, and benefits traditional Medicare doesn't offer.

Right now, federal payment decisions are being made that will directly affect what seniors pay and the coverage they receive.

Flat funding isn't neutral.

When rates don't keep pace with rising costs, seniors pay the price.

With higher out of pocket costs, fewer benefits and plan closures, especially in rural communities.

Seniors need stability.

Learn more at supportmedicareadvantage.com.

This podcast is supported by On Investing, an original podcast from Charles Schwab.

Each week, hosts, Liz and Saunders, Schwab's chief investment strategist, and Colin Martin,

head of fixed income research and strategy for the Schwab Center for Financial Research.

Along with their guests, analyze economic developments and bring context to conversations around stocks, fixed income, the economy, and more.

Download the latest episode and subscribe at Schwab.com slash on investing, or wherever you get your podcasts.

Welcome back. My guest is Jen Gushu. Jen is a supervising editor of cleaning and emergency prep here at Wirecutter.

I usually like to talk about things that our colleagues have written and reported on.

You were telling me about how you tested and reported on emergency food rations.

What's the headline?

They don't taste great, but they're going to last forever.

Love that.

Okay, so I talked a little bit about this in my open.

The glass rakers are, you're likely not going to use these.

You're likely not going to have to use these. That's the hope.

Almost certainly not. The likelihood of you needing one of these is very, very slim.

The hope is that first responders will be able to get to you expediently and extract you from the vehicle safely.

But there is always a chance that your car catches fire or your car plunges into a lake or a river and you need to act quickly to escape your car.

And why not have a tool that can help you do that?

Right.

It's one of those things that if you can afford it, why not keep it on hand?

Yeah, just in case something happens.

It's a just in case.

Yeah. So talk to me about how this assignment came about for you.

So my beat is emergency preparedness.

And we do a lot of how to prepare for a natural disaster, a hurricane, a wildfire, things like that.

But I had recently been getting a lot of Instagram ads for these little tools, these glass breaking tools.

There are a ton out on the market. They're everywhere.

And a car accident is an emergency too.

And we had previously not covered this product market.

And so I thought, why not? They're everywhere.

Let's see if they actually work.

I've been targeted to and you know, the videos are of the car plunging into the thing and you have seconds.

And then they're like, buy this.

Yeah, there's a lot of fear mongering in these ads.

And I think what we are trying to do is cut through that and determine whether or not this is going to be an actual useful tool for you.

And make sure it actually works.

Right.

A lot of people buy them, throw them in their glove compartment, never use them, never try them.

And then if the time comes to use it, maybe they can't find it or don't even know if it works.

And so I figured the best way to test these is to break some glass.

Okay. So you win a little bit beyond just break some glass.

I mean, wire cutter testing tends to be very rigorous, but you kind of took this to the next level.

Talk about how you reported it.

Yeah.

My first step was reaching out to first responders, people who are rescuing folks from car accidents all day every day.

And I really wanted to test these tools on actual automotive glass.

My first step was trying junk yards, see if they would let me come break some windows that ended up being a dead end.

Buying auto glass was a little cost prohibitive.

And I eventually connected with a firefighter Paul de Bartolomeo, who works with the Stanford Fire Department.

He showed interest right away.

He was like, yeah, we'll bring you out to the drill field in Stanford.

We'll source some junk cars for you.

And we'll let you break the glass.

And see maybe there's something I think that I'm going to talk about.

You paint a picture.

You roll up.

Yeah.

You meet Paul.

What was that day like?

It was probably the hottest day of the summer.

Got a tot.

Yeah.

Oh my god.

It's so hot in there.

These cars were, again, scrap.

They had no air conditioning.

We couldn't even turn them on.

And yeah, we set up.

And, you know, I had all these tools laid out and slowly, but shortly,

all of these firefighters who are on duty sitting in the firehouse 40 yards away start to realize

there's something interesting going on out back.

So they keep kind of wandering up to us and be like, what are you going on here?

Orange will probably work well.

We used to have those in the fire app routes.

Oh, I have one of these in my pocket.

And they keep pulling their own personal glass breaking tools out of their pocket.

And I'm like, did you test this one?

Do you want to test this one?

You guys are curious about this one, huh?

Yeah.

I want to see you try to do that under stress.

Yeah.

Well, yeah.

I can't get it to wet.

Okay.

In testing these glass breakers, at least two of the questions you need to answer are one,

do they work?

And two, will they work on all car glass?

Yeah.

So almost immediately when I started talking to these first responders and doing these interviews,

I discovered that there are two different types of automotive glass that you'll find in contemporary

cars.

There's tempered glass and there's laminated glass.

And most of these glass breaker tools only work on one of the two types, tempered glass.

That's just how the glass is structured.

It's designed to shatter into a million little pebbly pieces for safety reasons so that, you know, you can escape the car

and so that you don't get cut by larger shards.

And then the other type of glass I discovered is laminated glass, which more and more cars are starting to use

as an ejection mitigation prevention technique.

And because it provides a little bit better of an in-cap and experience, laminated glass is made

with a core of plastic material sandwiched by two layers of glass.

And that core of plastic means that it doesn't shatter.

Even when it's hit by a pretty sharp point, it really just kind of spiders and it'll fracture

but it won't shatter.

If you've ever had a rock hit your windshield and it creates that little spider,

that is what an impact on laminated glass looks like.

So I take it most, if not all windshields are made of laminated glass now.

By-law, all windshields are made of laminated glass.

And that means that using any of these tools, ones that just have a sharp tip,

are not going to break that glass in a way that's still going to allow you to escape.

You need a much more specialized tool, really kind of in the form of a heavy duty saw blade

to be able to get yourself out of a car with laminated glass windows.

That's scary.

I think it would be terrifying to have a glass tool that you assume will work on the type

of glass you have in the car, but it's not a match.

Yeah.

As I was researching this story, I had just gotten a new car and I went outside to check

what kind of glass the car had.

And I realized that my car has entirely laminated windows, windshield, rear window,

all the passenger windows, even the sunroof, all laminated glass.

And my dad years ago had gotten me one of those basic auto safety kits

that comes with the little hammer that you see.

It's got a bright orange handle and these little silver hammer tips.

And I threw it in my glove box thinking, sure, great.

I'll have it just in case.

And it won't do anything.

You pull that out and think, if I have laminated glass, this is a toy.

Yeah.

And I had been driving around in this car for six months, having no idea that I was potentially in trouble in this way.

Okay.

So big headline, know the type of glass you have in your car.

How do you figure that out?

Triple A did a study in 2019 that said that one third of cars are made with laminated glass.

Therefore, two thirds of cars are still produced using tempered glass.

Got it.

So every piece of auto glass has in the corner a little collection of information.

And it's all code for what type of glass is in there.

It'll tell you the UV rating, the thickness, the strength, et cetera.

It should also tell you whether it's tempered or laminated.

Okay.

Some cars simply say tempered laminated makes it very easy.

Some use a brand name like Lama safe.

My car just has a Roman numeral.

So I had to look up what that meant.

And if you can't tell or you're not sure, the really easy way to tell what kind of glass your window is,

is to roll down the window and look at it from above.

A tempered glass window is just going to look like a paint of glass.

Laminated glass on the other hand, roll the window down, look from above,

and you should be able to see three layers.

You should be able to see that plastic core sandwich between the two glass pieces.

It also should be in your owner's manual if you really want to dig that out.

Okay, so now we know what kind of glass we have in our car.

I can now pick the appropriate tool to break that glass.

Yes.

Let's talk about tools that work on tempered glass first.

You've got some in your holding one that looks very familiar.

Let's talk about it.

So this tool called the Rescue Me is our budget pick.

This one is ubiquitous.

It's everywhere.

I have one of those.

If you've gotten an ad on Instagram, it is almost certainly for this one.

Yeah.

And this is a great tool.

There is no knock on this whatsoever.

It absolutely works.

It's eight bucks, grab one.

But the thing about this tool is look how small it is.

I mean, it fits in the palm of my hand.

It kind of fits across my forefinger.

It's a bright yellow green.

To access the glass breaker, you just need to push this black tip into the window.

And then there's a hole in the front here, out which comes a tiny little steel point.

Okay.

And it's spring loaded.

And so with pressure in pushing it into the glass, the steel point is going to pop out and shatter the window.

So what I would imagine would be detrimental to that tool is when you're gripping it,

when you're pushing that black tip against the window, your hand is really close to a window

that you know if you have tempered glass is about to shatter into a lot of little pebbles.

Yeah.

The most effective way to use this tool is to really kind of ball it up in your whole fist

and jam it right through that glass.

One, two, three.

You want a glove?

If you want a glove then you have it.

When I tested it, I cut up my hand.

Pretty good.

It'll get you.

To be fair, the firefighters offered me gloves.

I said no thanks.

You probably won't have one.

Have a glove in a crash scenario.

So I might as well try it under, you know, the most real world circumstances that I can.

With some emergency medical professionals close by.

I suffer the consequences, but I stand by that testing point.

At the end of the day, if you walk away from a deadly crash with a couple cuts and scrapes on your hand, you've walked away.

The rescue me is the budget pick if you have tempered glass to be really specific.

Correct.

Let's talk about the life hammer because the life hammer is the top pick.

Describe for me what you're holding in your hand right now.

Yeah.

This is the life hammer evolution.

It operates very much the same way as the rescue me.

It's got this kind of large flat gray head.

And out of the middle comes a ceramic point this time.

They use ceramic because ceramic is reliably harder than glass.

And what I liked about the life hammer is that you've got this longer handle.

It almost looks like a paintbrush.

It does.

It actually looks like a medium sized paintbrush.

Yeah.

And the long handle really kind of gives you some more space between your skin and the glass.

And when I was using this, I was reliably able to kind of arrest my hands momentum before it went through the glass.

So it's a little safer to use.

The larger head also gives you a bit bigger of a target to aim at the window.

And you know, this is not the like proper way to deploy the tool.

But if I press down here, we can kind of deploy the tip and you can see.

Yeah.

It's quite sharp.

It's really pointy sharp piece of little white ceramic that is going to break your tempered glass.

Definitely.

Okay.

So those are the two picks for tempered glass.

And again, tempered, it's going to be single pain and it's going to be the one that when it breaks,

it shatters into a lot of sharp tiny pebbles.

Yes.

Laminated glass is the other type you might have in your car.

Again, go check which glass you have.

It matters and it makes a difference which tool you reach for.

What tool ended up as the top pick?

Yeah.

The trouble is because laminated glass needs to be cut through or song through,

there are very few consumer facing options to cut through laminated glass.

You really need a saw blade.

First responders use a really mean look and saw called the glass master.

It's got a button that they use to kind of whack through the window and make a purchase hole

that they can then put the blade into and saw you out.

It's not something you have in your trunk.

No, it's about a foot and a half long.

It's not something you're going to fit in your center console or your glove box.

We did have a demoed for us in Stanford and reassuringly it took the firefighter

who demoed it for us about 20 seconds to cut through an entire windshield.

Yeah.

But even still, it took him two or three good wax to get that but end of the tool

through the windshield to get the purchase point.

Even someone who's done it multiple times, it takes some serious effort.

And that's what I learned testing the laminated glass pick.

Have it here.

It's called the lifeline.

And it is basically a dagger.

Significant saw blade.

Yeah.

It's really sharp.

The teeth are really deep so that it's not going to dull.

Remember, you're cutting through plastic here, which is a material that can pretty quickly dull a blade.

As a point of comparison, I used kind of a regular multi-tool to try to cut through laminated glass.

And I got two or three strokes in before the blade was too dull to do anything with.

Wow.

And so this, it's made out of three-sixteenth-inch steel.

So it is a really hefty blade.

And the teeth are really deep that even if it dulls over time, you're still going to get some ripping power out of this blade.

And so it operates very similarly to that kind of professional glass master saw that I was talking about.

It's got this kind of sharp point on one end that you first drive through the window.

You then turn the tool around, insert the saw blade, and you saw for your life, basically.

And it takes a lot of effort.

It takes a lot of muscle.

I don't know if it's feasible that every single person, especially after an intense crash,

is going to be able to force their way through the plastic, but it's kind of your only option.

What is the name of this tool?

The version of the tool that is available direct to consumer is called the Lifeline Evac Pro.

And how much is it going to cost you?

This one is really expensive, and that is a major downside here.

The Lifeline Evac Pro is $239.

Oh my goodness.

Yeah.

And it's a challenge because they're kind of the only game in town.

I wish there were more options.

I am keeping an eye out for more options, hopefully more become available so that we can provide options to folks.

But this was really the only one that I could find that effectively cuts laminated glass that is marketed to do so

and that is available direct to consumers.

A conclusion I'm drawing here is, you know, you said about one third of vehicles have laminated glass.

And there's really one tool that's available at the moment that costs $239 that will saw through laminated glass windows.

It's a real hole in the market, I think, and I am glad that the Lifeline exists.

But I am hopeful that, you know, there will be more competitors down the line.

Were there any other tools, Jen, that you tried that disappointed you?

You had high hopes and it turned out they didn't work the way you hoped it would.

Yeah, we tested several models and there was only one that didn't break the glass whatsoever.

It's called the OWL, which stands for Open Window for Life.

And I was intrigued by it because it's about the size of a credit card.

You can literally stick it in your wallet.

And the idea is that you insert it into the window frame.

Well, yeah, I like can't get it to wedge in there, which is.

And then pull the back back to snap a little.

Steal tip against the window, theoretically that force shatters the glass.

We tried it on a couple different cars, on a couple different windows.

I tried it, Paul tried it, and it didn't break any of the glass we tried it on.

That one is not...

That's all the bottom list.

So to recap, go out, check your windows in your car,

figure out if you have a temperate glass, the glass that's going to shatter into lots of pebbles,

in which case you could buy something like the life hammer, which is around 20 bucks.

That's the one that kind of looks like a medium sized paintbrush that you are going to push through the glass

and it has that ceramic tip that will shatter the glass in your car.

Or you could reach for the rescue me, which is you're really balling it up in your fist

and you are using the force of your arm.

Plus the steel tip that comes out of it, spring loaded to break that temperate glass.

Conversely, if you have laminated glass in your car beyond waiting for emergency services,

you could grab something that you could keep in your glove box called the Lifeline Evac Pro,

which essentially is a mean-looking saw.

So check it out.

We hope we think and we suspect you will not have to use these tools.

But if you could get one, leave one in your car.

You'll just know that if you have to use it, you'll have it.

Jen, thank you so much.

Thank you.

This podcast is supported by Pharma.

America leads the world in medicine development.

It matters.

We get new medicines first, nearly three years faster.

Five million Americans go to work because we make medicines here at home.

And not relying on other countries keeps us safe.

But China is racing to overtake us.

Will we let them?

Or will we choose to stay ahead?

When America leads, America cures.

Let's tell Washington to keep us in the lead.

Learn how at AmericaCures.com.