Try to stay calm, unbuckle your seat belt and roll your window down. Exiting through the open window is preferred above anything else. If there are children in the car, get them out first.
What if I can’t open the window?
The situation gets much more complicated.
Laminated glass, which has specific safety qualities to protect people from being ejected during a crash, is nearly impossible to break underwater, AAA found after testing various tools.
That seems like mostly bad advice. What you should do is open the door as fast as possible, before the car has begun to sink. There's not enough water pressure at that point to prevent it.
If you freeze and hesitate then you're past the point of being able to just open the door unless you calmly wait until the interior has filled with water and then you can again. But at that point you're likely panicking
My current plan (obviously open windows if possible, don't drive into lakes, etc.) is to use the resqme spring-loaded glass breaker (my work gives them out as branded swag at conferences, but I gave away hundreds in Iraq/Afghanistan when I worked there too) or glowrhino carbide tip I keep with me. That doesn't work very well on laminated glass (but I'm often in a rental, so I don't know which cars have/don't have it). Failing that, put some rounds into the glass and try to pry it out of the frame. Shooting a handgun in a car with closed windows (especially) is pretty disorienting, I've done it while wearing earpro but never without, but beats drowning. (I'm somewhat surprised the sheriff deputies in the Chao case didn't try this...seems very Texan solution to opening a closed thing)
The technique with laminated glass is basically to make a line of cracks/deformations to allow you to deform the entire panel and pop it out, not to make a hole to go through. Pretty hard to do with a carbide punch, but probably your best bet. Then use legs or body to push the entire window out.
Also, the smaller/accessory windows are often NOT laminated (esp on Tesla), so hitting one of those to let water in and then equalize pressure to GTFO is an option.
Leaving a gun in your car is irresponsible; that's a very common way for them to get stolen.
The modern thinking on this is that you should carry it on your person at all times or leave it at home (e.g. if you're going to a place you can't carry it). Additionally, frequent "administrative handling" of your gun (like unholstering it in your car and re-holstering it when you get out) needlessly increases your chances of a negligent discharge, so moving it off of your body when you get in your car is also discouraged.
Of course this doesn't mean that everyone knows/thinks this way (and many don't), but from my discussions with other firearm advocates, this is the modern school of thought.
So—to answer your question—a Glock 19, and yes, as it's on me already ;-)
People who carry a firearm on their person daily are a tiny minority overall - but they're vastly outnumbered in my experience by people who keep a pistol in their vehicle.
I don't advocate for off-body carry in general, but I'd expect it to be far more likely than you might think for there to be a handgun available to someone in a car.
... and yes, as the GP mentioned, firing it in that closed space would suck. It's going to take multiple rounds to weaken safety glass enough to get through it, and it's going to be loud. As a heuristic, I'd say you should assume that if you have to do that, you're trading your hearing for the rest of your life.
Firing a handgun inside a vehicle, even with both ear plugs and electronic muffs, is enough to make your ears ring.
Yeah, I just mean "the gun I have on my waist", not a special car gun. And especially for the police in Texas at the ranch, they would almost certainly be armed, and I'd assume ranch staff would also have access to firearms within some period of time less than total flooding/drowning of car.
In a class "Bullets and Vehicles" at Sig Sauer Academy. (https://sigsaueracademy.com/courses/bullets-and-vehicles). Truly amazing. Also some classes at Thunder Ranch (https://thunderranchinc.com/handgun-vehicle-trauma) but those were using own own rental cars (lol, I had an Infinity QX80 with full coverage) and the goal was to avoid putting any damage on the car, so it was just firing from seat/getting out/etc. drills. The Sig class has good law enforcement support (many of the students are LE/agency) so they had a repo'd car: in my class most of the work was done with Audi 2003 (B6 model) A4 sedan, which was cool as I was driving a 2006 (B7 model) A4 at the time. Lots of cool pictures somewhere.
I also worked for ~6y in Iraq/Afghanistan but we never shot through glass in our own vehicles, did shoot rifles from open doors etc. on ranges but the times I was in trucks which were actually shooting "in anger" I was a passenger in the back in armored vehicle and the guy up top did all the work (and almost always it was warning shots, and most often frozen water bottles thrown at cars first to dissuade them)
(Basic firearms training is great, and the vehicle stuff is fun, but TBH the medical parts of these classes are far more useful; I wish more people would take trauma management classes. Outside of war zones, easy to go entire life without any "security" problems, but lots of car accidents, tool accidents, etc. where knwoing this stuff can save someone.)
It's obviously a sad story but does anyone else feel that the Wall Street Journal running this story is a just a sad sign of a website losing its focus.
This is a follow up on an article about a billionaire who recently drowned in her car. It would be very strange if they ran this piece out of the blue.
The whole thing about laminated glass is interesting.
Historically speaking, side and rear windows were made from tempered glass that would explode into many small, not-so-sharp fragments when damaged. Laminated glass does not do this; it breaks, but the inner layer(s) between the glass layers holds the window together. If you want to get through a car windshield, this is why you end up needing a saw rather than a hammer.
Due to new regulation that aims to reduce the number of drivers ejected from vehicles during crashes, some manufacturers have been switching to use laminated glass for side and rear windows.
This may be entirely rational if the number of casualties avoided in those cases exceeds the number of cases where escape is hindered (which is almost certainly the case as being ejected from the vehicle is very strongly correlated with serious injury or death, and drowning deaths represent basically half of one percent of deaths in road traffic accidents), but many people don't like to hear about good risk tradeoffs and want impossible global improvements.
> Due to new regulation that aims to reduce the number of drivers ejected from vehicles during crashes, some manufacturers have been switching to use laminated glass for side and rear windows.
I'm surprised that getting ejected from the side or rear window is common enough to warrant such a change. There seems to be a lot of downsides - any emergency where a person (or pet) needs to be freed from a locked car quickly comes to mind.
I actually assumed that the laminated glass in the Tesla story was a security feature.
Anecdotal, but the only person I know who was killed in a car accident was ejected due to not wearing a seat belt.
For a long time, it was my go-to rebuttal for the idiots who claimed that they'd rather be "thrown clear" in an accident: "I knew someone who was thrown clear. Then the car flipped over on top of him."
A substantial number of people still are not wearing seatbelts? For those of us who are wearing seatbelts the risk of ending up in a pond or canal is immeasurably higher than the risk of ejection.
Total ejection does almost always occur due to not wearing seatbelts, but partial ejection (often due to a rollover) does occur frequently even for people wearing seatbelts.
And, yes, a substantial number of people are still not wearing seatbelts.
I've never understood why automatic center punches aren't sold for this use case. I have to think that's a much more reliable option than a goofy little hammer with a point on the end - water notwithstanding, who's going to be able to develop enough force trying to swing that while seated in a car?
Readit News
Try to stay calm, unbuckle your seat belt and roll your window down. Exiting through the open window is preferred above anything else. If there are children in the car, get them out first.
What if I can’t open the window?
The situation gets much more complicated.
Laminated glass, which has specific safety qualities to protect people from being ejected during a crash, is nearly impossible to break underwater, AAA found after testing various tools.
So thats that
If you freeze and hesitate then you're past the point of being able to just open the door unless you calmly wait until the interior has filled with water and then you can again. But at that point you're likely panicking
> A third of 2018 model-year vehicles have laminated glass in their side windows, AAA says
I'd guess it's increased more now.
The technique with laminated glass is basically to make a line of cracks/deformations to allow you to deform the entire panel and pop it out, not to make a hole to go through. Pretty hard to do with a carbide punch, but probably your best bet. Then use legs or body to push the entire window out.
Also, the smaller/accessory windows are often NOT laminated (esp on Tesla), so hitting one of those to let water in and then equalize pressure to GTFO is an option.
The modern thinking on this is that you should carry it on your person at all times or leave it at home (e.g. if you're going to a place you can't carry it). Additionally, frequent "administrative handling" of your gun (like unholstering it in your car and re-holstering it when you get out) needlessly increases your chances of a negligent discharge, so moving it off of your body when you get in your car is also discouraged.
Of course this doesn't mean that everyone knows/thinks this way (and many don't), but from my discussions with other firearm advocates, this is the modern school of thought.
So—to answer your question—a Glock 19, and yes, as it's on me already ;-)
I don't advocate for off-body carry in general, but I'd expect it to be far more likely than you might think for there to be a handgun available to someone in a car.
... and yes, as the GP mentioned, firing it in that closed space would suck. It's going to take multiple rounds to weaken safety glass enough to get through it, and it's going to be loud. As a heuristic, I'd say you should assume that if you have to do that, you're trading your hearing for the rest of your life.
Firing a handgun inside a vehicle, even with both ear plugs and electronic muffs, is enough to make your ears ring.
I also worked for ~6y in Iraq/Afghanistan but we never shot through glass in our own vehicles, did shoot rifles from open doors etc. on ranges but the times I was in trucks which were actually shooting "in anger" I was a passenger in the back in armored vehicle and the guy up top did all the work (and almost always it was warning shots, and most often frozen water bottles thrown at cars first to dissuade them)
(Basic firearms training is great, and the vehicle stuff is fun, but TBH the medical parts of these classes are far more useful; I wish more people would take trauma management classes. Outside of war zones, easy to go entire life without any "security" problems, but lots of car accidents, tool accidents, etc. where knwoing this stuff can save someone.)
Why? Tabs at the top of their page:
* Latest World Business U.S. Politics Economy Tech Finance Opinion Arts & Culture Lifestyle Real Estate Personal Finance Health Style Sports
Under "Business" they have:
* Airlines Autos C-Suite Deals Earnings Energy & Oil Entrepreneurship Telecom Retail Hospitality Logistics Media
Per the URL, this is Business > Auto.
Why thank you, but I’ll just keep taking the Hoboken–33rd subway
Historically speaking, side and rear windows were made from tempered glass that would explode into many small, not-so-sharp fragments when damaged. Laminated glass does not do this; it breaks, but the inner layer(s) between the glass layers holds the window together. If you want to get through a car windshield, this is why you end up needing a saw rather than a hammer.
Due to new regulation that aims to reduce the number of drivers ejected from vehicles during crashes, some manufacturers have been switching to use laminated glass for side and rear windows.
This may be entirely rational if the number of casualties avoided in those cases exceeds the number of cases where escape is hindered (which is almost certainly the case as being ejected from the vehicle is very strongly correlated with serious injury or death, and drowning deaths represent basically half of one percent of deaths in road traffic accidents), but many people don't like to hear about good risk tradeoffs and want impossible global improvements.
I'm surprised that getting ejected from the side or rear window is common enough to warrant such a change. There seems to be a lot of downsides - any emergency where a person (or pet) needs to be freed from a locked car quickly comes to mind.
I actually assumed that the laminated glass in the Tesla story was a security feature.
For a long time, it was my go-to rebuttal for the idiots who claimed that they'd rather be "thrown clear" in an accident: "I knew someone who was thrown clear. Then the car flipped over on top of him."
A substantial number of people still are not wearing seatbelts? For those of us who are wearing seatbelts the risk of ending up in a pond or canal is immeasurably higher than the risk of ejection.
And, yes, a substantial number of people are still not wearing seatbelts.
https://archive.today/631N4
See 'window breaker', 'car escape tool' etc. on Amazon for example.