DescentBB

As I was wandering through the internet this morning, a subject came up that piqued my interest. How do you escape from a vehicle if suddenly you are in it and it suddenly becomes submerged ? Since all car windows are electrically operated, they will not work under water (note this applies to both gas and electric cars) Kicking them out may not be the answer. I may be fed a line by the company selling a certain tool so I thought I'd come here and ask.

There was a mythbusters episode largely about this subject which goes over all the scenarios.

The electrical system in most reasonably maintained vehicles will actually continue to work even if the whole vehicle is submerged, at least for a few minutes. So power windows will actually roll down. Also in said mythbusters episode, if you wait till the cabin is completely flooded it is possible to open the door and escape normally, although with a little more effort (obviously opening the door before the cabin is completely flooded is next to impossible because of the pressure differential).

And lastly, there is indeed a tool you can carry in the vehicle that makes it next to effortless to shatter the glass, and also cut your seatbelt. You can buy them on amazon or lots of other places (auto parts stores, etc). One thing to keep in mind though is laminated glass is becoming more common on side windows, and those tools cannot break laminated glass, know what type of glass your side windows are before purchasing a tool like that.

I believe you can also lower your window and let the car fill and then exit thru window if you are thin enough. But having that glass breaker is best once the car is full.

So you have two tools, when both owned you can solve any problem, but when you can't use one you can use the other: 9mm or duct tape. So if duct tape can't solve this problem, 9mm probably will.