Rosie Garin: I'm Rosie Garin and you're

listening to the Wire Cutter 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 keychains 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.

Jen is an editor covering emergency

preparedness here at Wire Cutter. And

last year they headed out to a fire

station in Connecticut to break some

glass.

Jen Gushu: You were telling me about how you tested and reported on emergency food rations. What's the headline?

Rosie Garin: [laughter] They don't taste great, but they're going to last forever.

Jen Gushu: Love that. Okay, so I talked a little bit about this in in my open. The glass breakers 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

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.

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

Jen Gushu: 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 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 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.

Rosie Garin: I've been targeted, too. And like, you

know, the videos are of the car plunging

into the thing and you have seconds and

then they're like, "Buy this."

Jen Gushu: Yeah. There is 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 actually useful tool for you

and make sure it actually works. 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.

Rosie Garin: Okay. So you went 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.

Jen Gushu: Yeah, my first step was

reaching out to 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 junkyard, 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 Debartameo, who works

with the Stamford Fire Department. He

showed interest right away. He was like,

"Yeah, we'll bring you out to the drill

field in Stamford. We'll source some

junked cars for you and we'll let you

break the glass."

Rosie Garin: See, maybe there's something with I

think that's

Jen Gushu: You paint a picture. You You roll up.

Rosie Garin: You meet Paul. What was that day like?

Jen Gushu: It was probably the hottest day of the

summer.

Rosie Garin: God, it's hot.

Jen Gushu: Yeah. Oh my god, it's so hot in there.

These cars were again scrap. Uh they had

no air conditioning. We couldn't even

turn them on.

Jen Gushu: And yeah, we set up and you know, I had

all these tools laid out and slowly but

surely all of these firefighters who are

on duty sitting in the firehouse 40 yard

away start to realize that there's

something interesting going on out back.

So they keep kind of wandering up to us

and being like, "What do you got going

on here?"

Rosie Garin: Orange one will probably work well. We

used to have those in the fire app.

Jen Gushu: Oh, I have one of these in my pocket.

And they keep pulling their their own

personal glass breaking tools out of

their pocket being like, "Did you test

this one? Do you want to test this one?"

Rosie Garin: [snorts]

You guys are curious about this one,

huh?

Jen Gushu: Yeah. How are you trying to do that

under stress?

Rosie Garin: 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?

Jen Gushu: 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 of automotive glass that you'll

find in 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 uh and so

that you don't get cut by larger shards.

And then the other type of glass I

discovered is is laminated glass which

more and more cars are starting to use

as an injection mitigation prevention

technique and because it provides a

little bit better of an incin

experience. Laminated glass is made with

a core of plastic material. It's

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 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.

Rosie Garin: Now, by law, all windshields are made of

laminated glass. Okay? 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. Uh, you

need a much more specialized tool,

really kind of in the form of a a

heavyduty saw blade to be able to get

yourself out of a a car with laminated

glass windows.

Jen Gushu: 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 the car had and I realized that my

car has entirely laminated windows,

windshield, rear window, all the

passenger windows in even the sunroof,

all laminated glass. And you know, my

dad years ago had gotten me one of those

like basic auto safety kits that comes

with the little hammer that you see.

It's like got a bright orange handle and

these little silver hammer tips.

Rosie Garin: And I threw it in my glove box thinking,

"Sure, great." You know, I'll have it

just in case. Uh, and it won't do

anything.

Jen Gushu: You pull that out and think if I have

laminated glass, this is a toy.

Rosie Garin: Yeah. And I had been driving around in

this car for 6 months having no idea

that I was potentially in trouble in

this way.

Rosie Garin: Okay, so big headline, know the type of

glass you have in your car. How do you

figure that out? I think AAA did a study

in 2019 that said that onethird of cars

are made with laminated glass.

Therefore, 2/3 of cars are still

produced using tempered glass.

Jen Gushu: Got it. So, every piece of autoglass

has in the corner a little collection of

information. It's all code for what type

of glass uh is in there. It'll tell you

the UV rating, the thickness, the

strength, etc. It should also tell you

whether it's tempered or laminated.

Rosie Garin: Okay? Some cars simply say tempered

laminated makes it very easy. Some use a

brand name like Lamma. My car just has a

Roman numeral. Uh, 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 and

look at it from above. A tempered glass

window is just going to look like a pane

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 sandwiched between the

two glass pieces. It also should be in

your owner's manual if you really want

to dig that out.

Rosie Garin: 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.

Jen Gushu: Yes. Let's talk about tools that work on

tempered glass first. You brought some

in. You're holding one that looks very

familiar. Let's talk about it.

Rosie Garin: 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.

Jen Gushu: And this is a great tool that 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 four fingers.

Rosie Garin: It's bright yellow green.

Jen Gushu: 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.

Rosie Garin: Okay.

Jen Gushu: 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.

Rosie Garin: 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.

Jen Gushu: One, two, three.

Rosie Garin: Yep. I should have worn a glove. Do you

want a glove? That Yeah. When I tested it, I cut up my hand

pretty good. It'll get you.

Jen Gushu: To be fair, the firefighters offered me

gloves. I said, "No thanks. You probably

won't have one. Have a glove in 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 [laughter] medical

professionals close by." And I, you know, I suffered the

consequences, but like I I stand by that

testing point. And you know, 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.

Rosie Garin: And so, the Rescue Me is the budget pick

if you have tempered glass to be really

specific.

Jen Gushu: Correct.

Rosie Garin: So, let's talk about the Lifehammer cuz

the Lifehammer is the top pick. Describe

for me what you're holding in your hand

right now.

Jen Gushu: Yeah. So, this is the the Lifehammer

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.

Rosie Garin: Okay.

Jen Gushu: And what I liked about the life hammer

is that you've got this longer handle.

And so it almost looks like a paintbrush. It

does actually looks like a a mediumsiz

paintbrush.

Rosie Garin: 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 um a bit bigger of a target to aim

at the window, right? 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,

Jen Gushu: yeah, it's a really pointy, sharp piece

of little white ceramic that

is going to break your tempered glass.

Rosie Garin: Definitely.

Jen Gushu: Okay, so those are the two picks for

tempered glass. And again, tempered.

It's going to be single pane and it's

going to be the one that when it breaks,

it shatters into a lot of sharp, tiny

pebbles.

Rosie Garin: 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?

Jen Gushu: Yeah. The trouble is because

laminated glass needs to be cut through

or saw through. There are very few

consumerf facing options to cut through

laminated glass. You really need a saw

blade. First responders use a a really

mean looking saw called the glassm. It's

got a butt end 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.

Rosie Garin: 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 it demoed for us in

Stamford and reassuringly it took the

the firefighter who demoed it for us

about 20 seconds to cut through an

entire windshield. I mean, it's kind of,

Jen Gushu: but even still, it took him two or three

good whacks to get that butt 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 what I learned

testing the laminated glass pick. Have

it here. It's called the Lifeline. And

it is basically a a dagger

significant saw blade.

Rosie Garin: Yeah.

Jen Gushu: It's really sharp. The teeth are 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 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, you know,

two or three strokes in before the blade

was too dull to do anything with.

Rosie Garin: And so this, it's made out of 3/16 in

steel, so it is a really hefty blade.

And the teeth are 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

glassmaster saw that I was talking

about. It's got this kind of sharp point

on one end that you first drive through

the window. Uh 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 the

plastic, but it's kind of your only

option.

Jen Gushu: What is the name of this tool?

Rosie Garin: The version of the tool that is

available direct to consumer is called

the Lifeline Evac Pro.

Jen Gushu: And how much is it going to cost you?

Rosie Garin: This one is really expensive, and that

is a major downside here. The Lifeline

Evac Pro is $239.

Jen Gushu: Oh my goodness.

Rosie Garin: Yeah. and 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 for more options.

Hopefully more become available so that

you know 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 onethird 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.

Jen Gushu: It's a real hole in the market, I think,

and I am glad that the Lifeline exists.

Um, 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.

Rosie Garin: Yeah, I we tested several models

and there was only one that didn't break

the glass whatsoever. It was 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.

Jen Gushu: Well, yeah. I like can't get it to wedge

in there, which is

Rosie Garin: And then pull the back back to snap a

little point right there.

Jen Gushu: Steel tip against the window.

Theoretically, that force shatters the

glass.

Rosie Garin: 3, two, one. Not a

Jen Gushu: We tried it on a couple different cars

on a couple different windows. I tried

it. Paul tried it.

Rosie Garin: Which

one?

Jen Gushu: And it didn't break any of the glass we

tried it on. That one is not

That's going to the bottom of the list.

Rosie Garin: [laughter] So to recap, go out, check your windows

in your car, figure out if you have

tempered 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 paint

brush 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 tempered

glass.

Jen Gushu: 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.

Rosie Garin: 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 Gushu: Jen, thank you so much.

Rosie Garin: Thank you.