Third windshield replaced this year

I caught a rock from ONCOMING traffic. I was in the far left HOV headed south. They were in their far left HOV headed North and we had a concrete wall between us. I saw the rock come from the 18-Wheelers rear tire and get shot FORWARD as it came to the 1:00 to 12:00 position and hit me right square in the middle of where I look to drive. Even bulged the windshield in a little.

I figure I was going 80ish. Truck had to be doing 75 at least and that rock was going as fast as the truck if not faster. Conservatively that was a 160 to 180 mph strike with a rock the size of a golf ball. Deafeningly loud like a shotgun in the cab.

Can't increase my following distance enough to account for cars on the other side of the road throwing stones.

 

just stop driving. can't get a rock to the windshield if you're not on the road!

 

Technically, any crack is dangerous. To what extent you're willing to gamble, thats whats not definitive.

I'd refer you to the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration and Federal Motor Vehicle Safety Standards (FMVSS). They literally set the standards for auto glass requirements from manufacturers. If you want numbers, go read for yourself. Start at FMVSS 205 and read through 226. Its more than you'd ever want.

Don't google it then, search databases for empirical research articles. Its easy to find, but don't be upset when you don't get a "60% of roof's integrity in rollover" result from the first articles you find. You do have to put in some effort and read; moreso, you have to be able to understand how to read research articles and interpret data.

Windshields are laminated, not tempered. They don't shatter.

Most people freak out over small chips/cracks because they're subject to tickets/fines in their state, the small chips/cracks are mostly repairable (at a low cost/no cost through insurance), and can turn into high cost/potentially dangerous cracks overnight. People pick and choose their battles. Empirical peer-reviewed data shows windshields are crucial to the structural integrity of vehicles; if you don't intend to be in any rollover accidents, you probably don't care. But people don't expect to have accidents, get sick, or die. Thats why they have insurance, fix small problems before they become big problems, etc. To each their own.

Again, just because someone chooses to fear monger and make a dollar off the claim, doesn't mean there isn't truth in the claims.

 

Comprehensive free windshield replacement coverage with your insurance

 

The last safelite guy over at my place told me that there was a way to tell if the glass was meant to be structural or not... I forgot what he said, except that the glass on my 1st gen was not structural, and that was abnormal

 

Where do you source it though? I could not find anyone willing to sell me windshield glass, foregoing a bulk contract from the manufacturer.

 

Haven't really heard that before, but I'm sure the argument could be made either way you want to frame it. Someone could say the front door glass sitting in a track, no permanent attachment to the body of the vehicle, isn't designed to be a structural piece of glass; another could argue it wasn't designed to be, yet it still is, and still meets federal glass standards which require it to withstand X-amount of Y.

 

I have an account with mygrant. Me and my brother own a windshield replacements business. But 95% of our work is commercial accounts. I'm not sure how it works on your side of the country. But junkyards around me can get glass for their customers.

 

The deep Toyota literature in new car features shows force distribution in accidents and makes no mention of the glass, only the pillars and roof. (I cant share literature unfortunately)

Looked up a unibody Rav4 as well and it states many factors in a roll over and it doesn't mention the glass as structural but it mentions everything else considered body structure. It mentions the special steel used to distribute weight on the windshield header between the two a pillars.

I think its old hat and simply comes from old standards that haven't evolved, I agree its safer to have un damaged glass, especially severely damaged glass, but ultimately I can't be sold that a windshield with a long crack is actually dangerous.

 

Its a vision thing safteywise maybe?

 

Why is this a hard concept to grasp? Take the concept away from auto glass and try to see it in a different context; for example, look at lumber framing in a house. Try to frame a house, remove the horizontal supports, and the roof structure becomes less sturdy. Or take the same example, and don't remove the horizontal supports, but take a sledge and bust some cracks in those supports. Would you rather have undamaged supports, or cracked supports when a high wind storm comes through? I get it, glass seems so fragile, but its really not. We're not factoring impact strength here, we're looking at the amount of pressure it takes to make the glass buckle with all weight on the edges. Take a piece of cardboard, put it between your thumb and pointer finger, and try to crush it. Now take the same piece, put a shallow crease/crack in it, and repeat the crush test. Which one provides more structural integrity?

 

Underline Emphasis is mine not the OP.
But that is my whole beef with the "system" or "the man."

ADOT fails to maintain appropriate roadways, allowing construction debris and rocks all over the road and then tickets me when I incur a loss if I don't get it fixed.
I'd like a Three Chips rule. You get it fixed after the third chip or as long as a crack is smaller than a dollar.

And insurance - The reason for my threat to the state that I was going to start a YouTube Channel was because our insurance premiums DOUBLED (Foremost / Farmers). No one would give us a straight answer why and after digging it was "Too Many Claims Too Close in Mileage" Well hell, we work from home. Thought that would help LOWER our premiums, but when you get your windshield replaced every 400 miles (two to three months) it works against you. Went back to USAA and got a better rate and less squirrely about the service too.

 

I'm saying the windshield wont change how a roll over pertains to passenger safety. I agree that a windshield is weakened if its cracked or damaged. But on most roll overs that I've seen it spider webs and bows, it doesnt support the vehicle at all.

At best I'll agree that it protects the occupants if it holds the spider web better and one shape instead of breaking.

 

read through and it doesn't seem anyone really answered your question so here's my suggestion. I haven't done it, but my brother just had it done to his Porsche. Hopefully you don't have a 2nd gen Tacoma, doesn't look like they offer it for those years interestingly enough.

https://windshieldskin.com/collections/toyota/products/toyota

 

After my wife got a new job that was a 30 minute highway drive away, we got multiple chips and one big enough to need glass replacement the first year. We got an air deflector and the rock chips stopped and haven't gotten any additional chips in 9+ years.

 

And that is where you're just simply wrong. You're more than welcome to believe this, but the empirical data from crash/rollover testing that shape the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration and Federal Motor Vehicle Safety Standards (FMVSS) say otherwise.

Its not about it being laminated vs tempered and not shattering, it just simply provides structural support to the roof, just as studs do in lumber framing in a home. You don't get structural integrity entirely from the shell of a structure, you get it from the supporting components. When you remove or compromise those supporting components, the shell is more susceptible to caving in on itself under stress.

 

This is three pages!

https://parade.com/1043332/alexandra-hurtado/best-seinfeld-quotes/

 

Sorry, but I too fail to see how a windshield could possibly offer anything at all for structural support in a rollover. The very moment any large impact hits the A-pillar, it's shattered (yes, the laminate part keeps the shattered pieces from flying all over the place, but it is still shattered).

I do see that a (intact) windshield offers more rigidity to the entire cab structure (without it in place there would be much more body flex and metal fatigue, such as that from frame-twisting offroad trails/doing 3-wheel stands), but once the windshield shatters, all of that is gone.

Can you post some links to this data your citing?

 

These statements completely contradict each other. You fail to see that a windshield provides structural support/You do see that a windshield provides rigidity to the cab structure.
This is also the point entirely. You do see how an intact windshield provides support. You do see that a compromised windshield offers less support.

Would you even read them? I cited a source in the previous posts. They don't just make safety ratings without peer-reviewed research publications. You can start here:

Bahling, G.S., Bundorf, R.T., Kaspzyk, G.S.,
Moffatt, E.A., Orlowski, K.F., and Stocke, J.E.
“Rollover and Drop Tests – The Influence of Roof
Strength on Injury Mechanics Using Belted
Dummies.” 1990 SAE International Congress and
Exposition, SAE 902314, November 4-7, 1990.

Friedman, D. and Friedman, K. “Roof Collapse and
the Risk of Severe Head and Neck Injury,” 13th
International Technical Conference on Experimental
Safety Vehicles, Paper No. S6-O-11, November,
1991.

Friedman, D. and Friedman, K. “The Causal
Relationship in Rollover Accidents Between Vehicle
Geometry, Intrusion, Padding, Restraints and Head
and Neck Injury,” Appendix 2 attached to comments
to Docket No. 91-68; Notice 03, re: Rollover
Prevention, August 16, 1994.

Friedman, D. and Herbst, B. "The Relationship
between Vertical Velocity and Roof Crush in
Rollover Crashes," 1998 SAE International Congress
and Exposition, SAE 980211, February 23-26, 1998.

Friedman, D. and Chng, D. "Human Subject
Experiments in Occupant Response To Rollover
With Reduced Headroom," 1998 SAE International
Congress and Exposition, SAE 980212, February 23-
26, 1998.

Friedman, D. and Friedman, K. "Upper Interior Head,
Face and Neck Injury Experiments16th International
Technical Conference on the Enhanced Safety of
Vehicles.", Paper No. 98-S8-P-11, June 1998.
Friedman, D. and Friedman, K. "Contradictions in
the Risk of Head and Neck Injury in Frontal, Rear
and Rollover Accidents," Third World Congress of
Biomechanics, August 2-8, 1998
.
Friedman, K. and Friedman, D. “Improved Vehicle
Design for the Prevention of Severe Head and Neck
Injuries to Restrained Occupants in Rollover
Crashes," Paper No. 96-S5-0-14, 15th International
Technical Conference on the Enhanced Safety of
Vehicles, May 1996.

Friedman, K., Gaston, F., Bish, J., Friedman, D. and
Sances, A. “An Investigation of Hybrid III and
Living Human Drop Tests,” Biomedical Engineering
Critical Reviews, Vol. 26, 1999.

Friedman, K., Hutchinson, J., Sances, A., and
Friedman, D. (In preparation.) Computational
analysis of the effect of car roof strength on roof
intrusion velocity during rollover impacts.
Herbst, B., Forrest, S., Wang, P., Chng, D, Friedman,
D., and Friedman, K. “The Ability of 3 Point Safety
Belts to Restrain Occupants in Rollover Crashes,
15th International Technical Conference on the
Enhanced Safety of Vehicles,”, Paper No. 96-S5-0-
12, May 1996.

Huelke, D. “Injury causation in rollover accidents.”
Proceedings of the 17th Conference of American
Association for Automotive Medicine,1973.

Mertz, H. J., Hodgson, V. R., Thomas, L. M., and
Nyquist, G. W. “An assessment of comprehensive
neck loads under injury-producing conditions.” The
Physician and Sports Medicine, Vol. 6, No. 11, 1978.
McGraw-Hill Publishing Company.

Mertz, H. J. “Injury assessment values used to
evaluate Hybrid III response measurements.” General
Motors Corporation, 1984.
Moffatt, E. A. “Occupant motion in rollover
collisions.” Proceedings of the 19th Conference of
American Association for Automotive
Medicine,1975.

Nusholtz, G.S., Melvin, J.W., Huelke, D.F., Alem,
N.M., and Blank, J.G.. “Response of the cervical
spine to superior-inferior head impact.” Proceedings
of the 25th Stapp Car Crash Conference, 197-237,
1981.

Nusholtz, G.S., Huelke, D. E., Lux, P., Alem, N.M.,
and Montalvo, F. “Cervical Spine Injury
Mechanisms.” The 27th Stapp Car Crash Conference,
179-197, 1983.

Orlowski, K.F., Bundorf, R.T., and Moffatt, E. A.
“Rollover Crash Tests – The Influence of Roof
Strength on Injury Mechanics.” 1985 SAE
International Congress and Exposition, SAE 851734,
October 9-11, 1985.

Rains, G., and Kanianthra, J. W. Determination of
the significance of roof crush on head and neck injury
to passenger vehicle occupants in rollover crashes.
1995 SAE International Congress and Exposition,
SAE 950655, February 27-March 2, 1995.
Sakurai, T., Takigawa, Y., and Ikeno, H. “Study on
Passenger Car Rollover Simulation.” The 13th
International Technical Conference on Experimental
Safety Vehicles, November 4-7, 1991.

Sances , A., Yoganandan, N., Maiman, D. J.,
Myklebust, J. B., Chilbert, M., Larson, S. J., Pech, P.,
Pintar, F., and Myers, T. (1984). Spinal injuries with
vertical impact. In. Sances, A., Thomas, D. J.,
Ewing, C. L., Larson, S. J., and Unterharnscheidt, F.
Mechanisms of Head and Spine Trauma, (1986),
Aloray Publisher, Goshen, New York.

 

Eye lashes help, too.