Modern cars are designed with all sorts of safety gadgets and features. You hear about all the new technologies like rear-view cameras, side airbags, onboard computers, and more. The one feature you don’t hear about is glass.
But innovations in auto glass have made cars much safer than they used to be. Regular glass, like the glass windows in your house or apartment, shatters when it breaks. Large shards burst in every direction.
You could probably guess how dangerous it would be if your windshield shattered like a normal window. Those rocks and debris that usually bounce off—sometimes without leaving a scratch—would be a much bigger issue.
And accidents would be even more of a nightmare. Glass shards would be everywhere. So how is automotive glass different and how does it keep you safe?
Automotive glass is made up of laminated glass and tempered glass. Both types have features that keep you safe from impact, but how they do that is different.
Tempered Auto Glass
In most cases, all the glass on your car except for the windshield is tempered. The glass created by a special system of cooling and heating. This process makes it so the glass can be pulled and pushed on without breaking. The process makes normal glass 5 to 10 times stronger.
Laminated Auto Glass
Laminated glass is a little different. This is the type of glass that windshields are made of. It’s made by adding a layer of plastic between two pieces of glass. The plastic makes the glass shatter-resistant by providing a layer of cushioning.
It also prevents the impact from breaking the glass into a thousand pieces of glass. This reduces the chance that you get severe cuts in an accident.
But all these innovations won’t do you much good if your windows or windshield are not installed by a trained auto glass professional.
Courtesy of aeroautoparts
