There are some cars now that have side windows of anti-smash or theft proof glass. This type of glass has a plastic layer between two layers of glass, just like the windshield.
It will fracture, but the plastic sheet keeps the pieces in place.
No breaking it out with a center punch.
Really this is such a minor concern it really does not deserve it’s own thread.
If yo drive into a pond, roll the windows down. If for some reason the windows don’t work, put your head into the air bubble and wait for the pressure to equalize. open the door and swim out.
But above all, don’t panic. When the Mythbusters tried it, on first go Adam tried vigorously to get out, got flustered, couldn’t get out and had to grab for his air supply. On second go, with Jamie’s coaching, he just calmly sat and waited till the car filled with water fully, then calmly opened the door and got out.
Of course, they had it all planned out and the car was nice and level, and the water was clear and it was daylight.
Not panicking may be a leeeetle bit trickier when you’ve just had a car accident and may be dazed or injured and it may be dark and the water may be muddy and the car may be on its side or upside down plus you may have children in the back .
Oddly enough, we did a driving course in the Netherlands where they submerge your car into a pool and teach you how to get out. We did a story for Car and Driver magazine on this around 2000. (It was the writer who actually was in the car for the story, along with about a dozen other students. I was in the pool with underwater photography gear taking pictures, so I don’t have complete first-hand experience.)
The basic deal is this: once you get past a certain point (Mythbusters says when the water hits waistlevel) you have to wait for the car to get completely submerged underwater for the pressure to equalize so you can open the door. Until that happens, it will be impossible for you to open the door. Once completely underwater, you can open the door. Be aware that the door does not open normally. It takes a couple of seconds for it to go. The key is not to panic (which is, indeed, a very difficult request. Only one person in the group got out through opening the door–everyone went through the windows, which were open for this exercise. Our instructors wanted everyone to wait until the car was completely submerged).
Another tip for the instructors was to turn on your headlights, to make it easier for rescue crews to find you should your attempt to escape prove fruitless.
Back in 1960, I was returning to Texas Tech from Dallas when I ran into a stretch of road where the remnants of a flash flood were still draining. The road was covered with about a foot of standing water that I hit at about 70+ MPH; the result was instant loss of control. The engine shut down immediately and that took the power steering out. I remember the car spun and that somewhere along the line I managed to hit the light switch with my knee, turning off the lights in the process. I left the road and hit a solid wall of water; my first thought was that I had run into a pond. I managed to roll the window down (no electric windows on that car) and undo my seat belt, after which I went out the open window head first and into the chest of a guy standing in the water to assist me. It was then that I realized I wasn’t going to die; I was in a deep (maybe five feet) ditch alongside the road instead of a pond. Other than being soaking wet and very cold I was okay but the car (a 1959 Buick) was very nearly a total loss; the insurance company wrote it off. I was very frightened and still don’t know how I had the presence of mind to roll down the window and undo the seat belt. Scary experience for sure.
The car fills very quickly. The electronics go down very quickly. Windows won’t open. You need to force the door open or break a window as soon as you hit the water.
The advice of The Royal Society for the Prevention of Accidents is now to get out as quickly as possible. Waiting for the pressure to equalise will most likely kill you because it won’t happen until you hit the bottom of the body of water (the failing of the Mythbusters test was that they used a very shallow pool) and that could take some time.
But if you watch Hammond in the car, as the car is falling through the water (the passenger compartment is completely water filled) he’s trying to open the door, but it doesn’t open until a few seconds after it hits the bottom of the tank.
I’ve just noticed another difference between the Mythbusters’ experiement and the Top Gear one, the Mythbusters stripped the car down, whereas the Top Gear car was fully intact.
I assume it’s for this reason: If the water can only enter the interior of the car slowly, then there will always be a lag between the water pressure inside the car and that outside it, for as long as the car is sinking. The pressure outside will be rising faster than water can enter the car to equalise it, until the car hits the bottom. Shortly afterwards, enough water will have entered for pressure to become equal.
Years ago, a couple I knew went out to dinner one very rainy night to a new restaurant on the water. He made a wrong turn in the parking lot and the Volvo plunged into the water. The windows and door locks were electric. Someone saw it happen and got some help quickly. Still, he drowned. His wife was barely saved and had severe brain damage and died two years later. The two kids are being raised by their grandparents. Sad. Sad. Sad.
From shows I have read, the thing to do if you have electric windows is to just crack the window as soon as you see what’s happening. Having the window down all the way will cause the water to rush in so quickly you won’t have time to think, plan, and react. Once the water comes up to your chin or so, it will be fairly easy to open the door.
In the test we did, that was definitely not the case. One could open the door seconds after the car was fully submerged, and the instructors demonstrated this, and one student managed it (like I said, everyone else panicked and went straight out the windows.) Ah…that’s it. One big difference between the Top Gear test and our test was that the windows were open. That would be it.
Then go get your collection of fake passports, long black overcoat, a sniper rifle, and hunt the bastards down. “It’s not a mistake. They don’t make mistakes. They don’t do random. There’s always an objective. Always a target.”
No, water doesn’t compress. Once the car fills with water, the pressure in and out will be equal, as long as there is any communication between the two.
Nothing of significance to add to this thread, except to share this really odd dream I had last night.
I dozed off on the couch while watching the 10:00 news, with extra coverage about all the flooding and levee breaches taking place locally.
I dreamed I was on this extremely rickety, crumbling wooden bridge across an extremely swollen river; the river was so swollen that the water was almost coming over the side of the bridge.
Other cars were zooming over the bridge at 60+ mph like it was a normal bridge; I was creeping along, and rotten planks were breaking under the weight of my car, flying up and hitting the side of the car and windows.
I was about 3/4 across the bridge when the entire section I was on gave way, and down I went into the black water.
That’s when I woke up. The news had ended and Seinfeld was on.
I didn’t mean it to sound like the car would float all day long, just that you’d probably have time to get out. I don’t see anything in the video to suggest he couldn’t roll the window down and get out shortly after it hit the water, but he didn’t try it. The video seems to have been designed only to test opening the door on an already sunken car.
It looks like they cracked the passenger windows to vent air and make it fill faster. But I guess a lot will depend on the car.
The video isn’t very clear on that. The guy only says the central locking is going nuts after the car is half filled. There could be a lot of reasons for that (one being that this is a junker that was probably submerged more than once) and there is no indication of what other electric things are working or not. I’d bet electric windows would have rolled down soon after hitting the water, assuming the car had functional electric windows to begin with.
Agreed. No sense waiting
I’ll bow out now. It dawned on me that I’m a little out of my realm. I drive a Jeep with the top down and doors off all summer, so escape isn’t much of a worry. And I actually look for deep water to drive through.
