The Franchise 500 list from Entrepreneur magazine has just come out for 2012, and several auto glass repair franchise brands are listed in it, just like last year. At least three placed within the top 200 in the list, with two moving up the rankings and one moving down.

To be included in the Franchise 500 list is obviously prestigious, not only for the auto glass repair companies concerned here, but also for all companies that are listed. To qualify for inclusion in the compilation, a franchise company has to be fairly stable as well as well-known in its niche, and should also have a robust, well-thought-out and thriving franchising business. Many people interested in getting a franchise in some field or other refer to compilations such as these to help make their decisions just that little bit easier.

The three auto glass repair companies listed as belonging to the top 200 entries were Novus Glass, Superglass Windshield Repair, and Glass Doctor. To someone in the industry, all three names are eminently recognisable, and are among the oldest companies in the business. Novus Glass, for instance, was established almost at the same time that windshield repair technologies became available, with the person who established it, Gerald Keinath, having been the man who purchased the patent rights for the original windshield repair system from the person often credited with its invention: Dr. Frank Werner. To this date, Novus Glass is a highly respected and influential presence in the auto glass repair industry, claiming to possess far more patents relating to the field of windshield repair work than any other company in the business. Novus was listed at rank 65 in the list for 2011, which was released last year, so it has actually fallen slightly in the rankings.

Another company in the list, Superglass, saw a better change, with its ranking going up from 161 to 157. The company has its base in Florida and currently has well over two hundred and seventy franchise locations already. The company is most known for its exclusive specialization in repair. Superglass Windshield Repair is aptly named because it focuses only on the repair side of the equation in auto glass services, with no replacements being performed by its technicians or in its service centres. Currently, it claims to be the largest such enterprise in the US.

Finally, the Glass Doctor auto glass repair franchise brand also went up from 2011’s 167 to this year’s 163. The franchise also has in excess of 270 franchises at the moment that spread out all over the United States as well as Canada. Like the other two companies in this list, it has a long history in the industry, having been in existence for several decades already.

The NWRA, also known as the National Windshield Repair Association, has just announced that it is seeking new members for the ROLAGS committee from the auto glass repair community. The ROLAGS committee is responsible for overseeing the creation, improvement, or review of the ROLAGS, which is the Repair of Laminated Auto Glass Standard.

Membership in the committee obviously means a great deal to anyone working in the auto glass repair industry. The ROLAGS is a highly influential document in the trade, and was in itself the result of the efforts of two of the most influential bodies in the industry, the National Glass Association and the National Windshield Repair Association itself. The two worked hand in hand under the auspices of the American National Standards Institute, also known as ANSI, in order to come up with a document that would describe the procedures in the industry as well as the practices that could be considered the best ones. The group of people responsible for the ROLAGS is not actually limited to people actually in the auto glass repair industry: other sources of input have contributed their share to the standard, from those in the auto glass supply trade to those manufacturing windshield repair systems.

The ROLAGS is thus best considered a true industry standard, considering that it has seen the input and discussion of various interest groups throughout its development. It is a document that holds practices, terms, and procedures on which various members of the industry have reached agreement, and which are actually recommended to other members of the industry.

Now that the National Windshield Repair Association has called for new members of the committee, it is expected that quite a number of applicants from various interest groups within the trade shall be submitting the required documents for application in the period provided for applicants to submit their application materials. The NWRA has required that those interested in the position should submit these materials thirty days prior to the next meeting of the ROLAGS committee, which is to be held on the 9^th of February. This means that the actual submission deadline is the 9^th of the first month of the coming new year.

The NWRA is a non-profit organization that has historically done a great deal not just for windshield repair and replacement but also for auto glass repair as a trade. It has long been recognized as a prime source of data on the auto glass repair industry, and has also been responsible for organizing a good number of seminars, conferences, and similar events that have helped to bring members of the field closer to each other and able to share their experiences as well as expertise with other people working in the industry. It has long promoted lively discussion and meaningful debate within the industry, in hopes of improving it.

A woman from St. Cloud, Minnesota was hit by an auto glass repair van last December 20 at the crosswalk located at 5^th Avenue and 1^st Street. The woman, who was 51 years old, was heading north when she was struck by the auto glass repair van, which was heading west at the same time, at about 15:40 hours.

The auto glass repair van was being driven by the City Auto Glass employee Peter Ramaley. Ramaley, who is 43 years old, hails from Maple Grove and was apparently blinded by the sun at the time, so he was unable to see the victim, Elizabeth Garcia, at the time of the accident. As a result of the incident, Ramaley was cited for failure to yield to a pedestrian at a crosswalk, although he was not held.

The Fifth Ave. and First St. area of St. Cloud’s roads is actually quite hazardous, as many locals know. Those who have never been to the area are likely to doubt the van driver’s words alleging that he could not see the victim at the time of the incident, but those who are familiar with the location shall know that his alibi is actually fairly believable. There are some locals who in fact claim the entirety of St. Cloud to be afflicted with terrible glare, although some insist that there are particular locations where the problem is especially bad, and that the place where the accident took place happens to be one of them. The problem is not necessarily at a peak at all times of the day, but drivers have alleged before that certain times of the morning or afternoon see the drivers in that particular area driving nearly blind, depending on the direction in which they are headed.

This does not excuse the possibility of reckless driving, of course, so not all those who claim that they were unable to see a person that they strike with their cars can be excused so swiftly. Extreme care should still be taken by all drivers who are obliged to pass by locations like this, and various things may be done to that effect. For instance, it is possible to drive a little more slowly when going through such areas, or perhaps to wear dark glasses whenever going through these hazardous locations. Pedestrians, for their part, are supposed to check the streets repeatedly. Such precautions are only common sense if the danger is already known to exist.

Fortunately for the auto glass repair van driver in this case, Garcia was taken very quickly to a nearby hospital and was pronounced to have sustained only light injuries. It could have just as easily been worse. A few more precautions than usual might have prevented the incident on the whole, however.

For a Los Angeles Personal Injury Attorney

The Boyd Group, which runs auto glass repair and collision services under the sub-brand of Boyd Autobody & Glass, recently opened another shop for its auto glass repair facilities in Winnipeg. Located in Transcona, this is already the eleventh of Boyd’s shops in the area, making the company’s presence significant to the local economy and auto glass trade. It is only a regular-sized facility, being just above the 3,500 sq. ft. area mark, but this, when combined with Boyd’s other facilities in the locale, give the company a pretty noticeable presence here.

The Body Group is one of the relatively few businesses that have actually seen profit growth in this recession, and most of its sales increases have come from the auto glass repair and car damage repair centres it has been spreading throughout the country. For instance, it released figures just this November showing how its sales had gone up by a little over 40% for the 3^rd quarter of the year when compared to the figures for the same quarter of 2010. While the company also had to undergo closures recently (two of them, to be specific, for certain locations that were not performing well), the dent these put in total sales was low.

The figures for Canada, where the group also operates several facilities, were similarly positive, showing a slightly lower increase in profit but an increase nonetheless. In other words, the company’s figures for the third quarter of the year looked excellent.

The company actually had to go a bit of adjustment with its administration late this year, because its executive chairman went into retirement in October. The former chairman, Terry Smith, also withdrew from his membership in the Boyd Group’s board of trustees. He had served the company for over twenty years and was also a significant contributor to the company’s development, as he was a founder. While the figures for the last quarter of 2011 have naturally not come in yet, some analysts are predicting similarly positive figures as the ones recently released, the loss of Smith for the company notwithstanding.

The Boyd Group’s auto glass repair and collision services brand is known for its lifetime guarantee and wide distribution over North America. There are already more than forty locations for the brand in Canada and the US combined, and this gives it a significant footprint in the entire location. Boyd also claims to be the biggest operator of auto glass and collision repair shops and services in this area, making it a big competitor for other giants such as Safelite Auto Glass, which is another huge company with a very big presence in the US when it comes to auto glass services.