How Did A Serious Car Accident Inspire The First Windscreen?
Car windows can be expensive to replace if they break, which is part of the reason why dedicated window and windscreen insurance is a great way to avoid breaking the bank alongside the window itself.
The reason for this is that car window glass has to be specially made to meet two almost opposing demands. The front side windows and windscreen must not shatter and break apart to keep the occupants safe, but the rear windows need to break safely to make sure the same occupants can escape.
Some form of safety glass has been a legal requirement in cars since 1930, but it took an accident two decades before this for safety to be taken seriously in cars.
Through The Looking Glass
Windscreens and some front side windows are made from laminated glass, which consists of two layers of glass sandwiching an adhesive plastic layer, which means that when a sheet of glass shatters, it does not break apart but stays in one place.
It was originally invented by accident; Édouard Bénédictus, a French chemist, was experimenting with cellulose nitrate, a type of plastic. In 1903, one of his glass flasks ended up coated in it, but when he knocked it to the ground it kept its shape, even if it did break.
Initially, he thought little of it, but six years later, he was moved into action after hearing about a terrible accident.
Cars had been available since the late 19th century, but the Ford Model T had made them far more affordable to people who were not amongst the rich and famous.
The problem with this is that there were no rules, no seatbelts and no mercy in the event of an impact or a rollover.
Car windscreens were available, but they were literally made from a sheet of single glazing, and so when they broke, they sent sharp shards of glass flying everywhere.
Many accidents ended up causing serious injuries as a result of lacerations from the glass which made the impact of landing on the hard ground worse, but one particular story particularly moved the French chemist.
Two young women had been driving before they ended up in an accident where both of them suffered horrible cuts after crashing through the windscreen. One was said to have had her throat slit by the shards of glass.
This caused Mr Bénédictus to think of his jar, and almost immediately he developed what became known as triplex glass, applying for a patent the same year. By some accounts, he had made a prototype within a day of hearing about the accident.
By 1911, he had formed the Triplex Company, but the initial process for making the glass was so slow and complex that many manufacturers deemed it too expensive.
This would only start to change after the First World War, partly as a result of the process being refined in order to supply safety glass for gas masks, as well as the Pane v Ford case in the United States, which caused Henry Ford to mandate that all vehicles made by his eponymous company needed to use laminated glass.