is valued at $500 this year
LMAO, preview
Firefighter EMT here. Over 15 years. Glass breaking happens pretty often and we have plenty of ways with doing that. Almost none of us carry a dedicated seatbelt cutter at the ready. If I can’t get to the buckle very easily, I still just use a knife. Also works great for cutting the side airbags out of the way, which a seatbelt cutter can’t do. For the seatbelts I’m just very careful with the knife, and for the airbags I cut reaching in and with the knife facing outwards and away from the patient. Trying to carry and use a seatbelt cutter just simply isn’t worth the limited space I have to carry things that are quickly accessible. Too much of a one trick pony.
Knives are definitely easy. I still stand by my seatbelt cutter though; I was once in an accident, I was unconscious for a bit, concussed, airbags, smoke coming in, etc. No one was close, I was too fucked up to figure out the seatbelt, but I remembered my cutter on the door panel. Could a knife have done it? Yes. Was I in a state where I could safely handle a knife without hurting myself? Probably not. I wouldn’t recommend a cutter as an emt tool, but as a driver I’ll always keep mine.
I’m not speaking from an occupants perspective. I’m only chiming to provide some added context to the articles claims of the cutters primarily only being useful for rescue personnel.
I will say that the chances where a person crashes, and no one else is around, and the vehicle is on fire or there’s a reason the occupant should leave the seat after a severe crash, and the cutter would stay reachable, is very, very rare. Vehicles almost never catch on fire from crashes. Beyond that, unless you’re in BFE without a phone or anyone else around, it’s usually best you stay in place.
Oh, yes. I know my accident was like maybe a third of a percentage point of all accidents. Even then, my car didn’t fully ignite, just smoke, I just didn’t know what was and wasn’t going on. But you’re right, the article is weird about the EMT bit.
This article feels weirdly opposed to these things on principle, purely because it’s unlikely that they’ll be useful, but why the fuck does that matter ?
It’s not like they’re expensive, and there’s literally zero downside to having them in your car. Literal worst case scenario is that they simply do nothing. And in the event that they DO become useful, as incredibly unlikely as that might be, they can be a literal life saver.
Also, you don’t just have to use them if YOU get into a crash. You can use them to render aid if someone else gets in a crash, and is stuck in their vehicle and they’re in acute danger (otherwise, never move crash victims, wait for the paramedics to stabilise their spine)
By their some idiotic logic they use to rail against these devices, you might as well remove lightning rods from buildings or life vests from aircraft.
there’s literally zero downside to having them in your car. Literal worst case scenario is that they simply do nothing.
That IS a major downside. Relying on something that won’t work in a life-or-death situation wastes precious time. Knowing they don’t work is important so better alternatives can be prepared and planned for.
Counting on a tool that isn’t going to work is a major downside. Especially in the life and death situations that cause you to need one.
The alternative they’re advocating for is not having one at all, so no. It not working is litearlly no different from the alternative the article suggests.
Except now you have spent money on something that doesn’t work. It’s not “no different”, it’s a waste of resources.
They’re not literally useless. A steel tipped hammer with a sharp tip is ALWAYS going to be one of the best tools to break a glass window. Even if it’s not as reliable or easy as it’s made seem in ads, it’s still going to be better than your hands or random junk you have in the car. And that’s not even mentioning that their whole criticism only applies to laminated glass windows.
Plenty of cars, especially older ones, still use tempered glass, which can easily be shattered with one of these.
And even the article doesn’t argue that seat belt cutters don’t work, only that you’re unlikely to be in a situation where you can effectively use them.
And call me crazy, but if there’s even a 1 in a million chance that a 15$ tool could save mine, or someone else’s life, with literally no downside whatsoever to owning one, I personally consider that worth spending 15$ on.
Better than nothing but, according to the research, as useful as nothing. If you know in advance it will work on a particular car’s glass then that’s a different story. But if you give it as a gift or buy one without knowing and it turns out to be useless it grants a false sense of security. Someone may repeatedly try using it in an emergency instead of trying a different strategy.
according to the research
You say that like it’s settled fact. Was the “research” peer-reviewed and published in a reputable journal? Has it been replicated?
Did you read the article? It’s the entire reason this post exists. There are two citations that will answer your questions.
What different strategy do you suggest to gaining egress or ingress to a car whose doors can’t be opened, other than trying to smash one of the windows or windscreens ?
And like I said, the seat belt cutter fine works exactly as intended, even if it’s unlikely you’ll need it, when you do, it’s gonna work. It’s literally just a knife, that has to be used once, so it’s not like it’ll blunt over time.
I don’t know yet. But now that we know alternatives to these tools are needed we can let some experts in the field figure that out. Because we now know that these are useless on laminated glass and, per the article, a third of the tools sampled didn’t even work on non-laminated glass.
The article also points out how useless the seatbelt cutter is. And after hanging upside-down in my truck last December I can attest from first hand experience that the cutter would have definitely done more harm than good in my particular case.
It’s probably AI generated click bait
Every day I grow to hate the internet just a little more for the lack of care that goes into the content
I feel this way about humanity in general and their lack of caring… In general. I welcome the apocalypse
Reject the shareholder Internet, that’s never what we enjoyed about the Internet anyways.
You’re not wrong
Such a genius tool to make money. Bought by many, just in case. Mostly used by thieves.
An automatic centerpunch is a better tool for this by a long shot.
It would certainly be effective once you brought it into action. The problem I had when testing this was that it’s kind of small and difficult to find in a hurry with your eyes closed. It’s also easy to confuse a pen or similarly shaped object for it. The escape tool is very easy to find. I’ve never actually tested breaking glass with either, but I’ve seen enough videos about car thieves to be convinced of the effectiveness of both.
That actually sounds like a good suggestion. I’ve always thought I’d use the ‘turn on my back, grab steering wheel on my right and seat with my left arm, put both feet up to side window, pull back and kick the window out with both feet. Of course I haven’t tried it, but I’m pretty sure it would work. Especially if I did the center punch first. ;-)
The bot summary claiming the market is worth $500 this year is hilarious
Have just been researching this while looking for stocking stuffers. One alternative I’ve seen is to smash an old sparkplug, the pieces of ceramic are oddly effective at smashing out car windows.
That was the case when these tools were effective. Has your research shown it still holds true? I would assume the same changes that made the glassbreakers ineffective would do the same for those ceramic shards.
