True Story About Laminated Safety Glass

It seems strange that something so important to auto safety which every car today is required to have was invented by mistake, but this is a true story.

Edouard Benedictus

The French scientist, Edouard Benedictus, was born in 1878. Not only was he a renowned chemist, but he was also a composer, writer, and painter. He was famous for his Art Deco designs. He began working as a book binder in 1897. But by the turn of the century he was working in a lab as a chemist.

One day in 1903, while climbing a ladder, he accidently knocked an empty glass flask off of a shelf. Although he had heard the shatter of glass, upon examination he discovered that the flask had managed to essentially keep its original form. The shards of glass held together in a spider web-designed, flask shape.

The Mystery of the Broken Flask Solved

Edouard wondered how an empty glass flask could have clung together like that. It should have shattered into a million pieces. It was then that he learned from his assistant that the flask had once been full of a piston fluid made from cellulose nitrite. Although the liquid had evaporated, the inside of the flask still contained a thin, see-through film coating which, apparently, was holding the pieces of glass together. He was intrigued by what had happened but, at the time, the event was virtually forgotten.

From Accidental Discovery to Patented Safety Invention

Coincidentally, at about the same time in Paris, driving automobiles had become a new, and sometimes dangerous hobby. The same week as Edouard’s accidental discovery, a local paper ran an article about the recent increase in automobile accidents. After reading about the serious injuries incurred by drivers due to the spray of shattered windshield glass, Edouard had an epiphany as an image of the non-shattered flask leapt into his mind. He concluded that windshields could be safer when made from glass that was coated like the flask had been.

Edouard began working on his idea and in one day he had created the first piece of coated Triplex glass. Through trial and error, he determined that the most effective formulation was to bind two sheets of glass together with a clear, plastic layer between them. Six years later, he patented his invention as laminated safety glass.

Although an effective safety feature, Benedictus’ discovery proved too expensive to produce and automobile manufacturers were not quick to incorporate it into their designs. However, future products were based on his discovery, which means that the first safety glass was invented by mistake.

See If Your Insurance Will Cover Your Broken Windshield

We’ve all had it happen one time or another. We’re driving down the highway and we hear something small and hard hit the windshield. Next thing you know, there is a crack spreading across the glass. Maybe you parked underneath a nice shady tree in the middle of the summer. Unfortunately, a gust of wind picked up and knocked a branch down right onto the windshield of your car and now there is a pretty big crack or even a hole if the branch fell from high enough. The question that occurs to you now is, will insurance cover my broken windshield? The answer to that question depends on a couple of things. There are some caveats but generally, the answer is yes.

Comprehensive car insurance

• Theft
• Storms
• Fire
• Animal collisions
• Broken windows
• Exterior repairs

If you have something happen to your car that isn’t mechanical in nature, you should be able to get your insurance to fix it. This is where the caveat comes in. While the insurance policy covers what happened, it does not necessarily pay for all of the damage or loss on your car.

Check out your deductible

Having comprehensive insurance is the first part of the answer to this question. The second part has to do with how much is your deductible on your policy. If you haven’t dealt with insurance that much then you may not know how the deductible works. The most simple explanation of this is the deductible is the amount of money you pay up front. After that amount has been paid, the insurance company will pay the rest.

While some people are likely to say something along the lines of “why would you not get the lowest deductible possible (usually $50 or $100) so that the cost to yourself is going to be almost nothing. The answer to that is that the lower the deductible you carry on your insurance policy, the higher your premium is going to be. The higher the deductible, the lower the premiums.

If you are carrying something like a $500 deductible, and you pay that first, then insurance isn’t really paying for your windshield. At the same time, if you have a big windshield crack in your fancy car, the $500 isn’t going to cover all of it. So insurance will at least be helping you pay for most of it. Should you have a smaller deductible, you are likely to get it almost all paid for. Few policies will have it work so there is no deductible, so insurance isn’t going to pay for the broken windshield entirely. Call us today to see if your insurance will cover your windshield replacement.