A disturbing if slightly odd incident happened at a B. Avenue home in Cedar Rapids on the 8^th of this month. Two women were having a quiet night inside the house when two men apparently broke down their door and then proceeded to damage the windshield on a car parked in the driveway, costing the victims just a little under $1000 in damages for both a door repair and a windshield replacement following the incident.

According to the two victims, nothing had given any indication that two men whom they did not know would suddenly break into the front door and then proceed to enter the house. When the men broke down the door, the pair of women immediately ran to hide and succeeded in evading the men. They quickly called the local police as soon as the men left the house. The two men were not done with their mischief, though, for all that there were no items immediately reported to be stolen from the house after their illegal entry: the men went on to smash the windshield on one of the cars outside so badly that it ended up having to get a windshield replacement.

When the women took a peek outside, they also discovered that the suspects were leaving in a vehicle of their own, and immediately came up with a description of the car to provide to police officers as they made the call for help. The description helped police find at least one of the suspects later in the night, when a car matching the details provided by the victims was stopped on a road in the northeast section of the town. The man caught was a 39-year-old named Marcus Brown, who was subsequently charged with 3^rd degree criminal mischief, 2^nd degree burglary, and aggravated misdemeanor. He was held in Linn County Jail after his arrest, although he has since been released.

It is yet unknown whether Brown or his alleged accomplice—who has yet to be found—was responsible for the damage that required the victim to get a windshield replacement. Another point that has still to be cleared up is what the men’s motives were in breaking down the door of the house and entering it without seeming to have organized or serious burglary in mind. Police are wondering if the occasion was largely one of careless misdemeanor, but are reluctant to say exactly what their bets are on the answer. At the moment, authorities are still investigating the event and trying to find out what happened. There are still also some queries being asked about the driver of the stopped getaway vehicle, who was said to be a female who was also held in custody for a while.

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The new Mercedes-Benz SL roadster has just been revealed by the company, and it boasts a luxury feature that was a big hit when it was part of another car that the company had created: electrochromic or “smart” auto glass on its panoramic roof, which was also part of the Mercedes-Benz SLK that the company unveiled at the very start of the previous year.

Electrochromic auto glass is essentially a type of glass that has the capacity to transition from one colour or opacity to another and back again, with the color or translucency change being triggered by an electric current. Electricity is generally the stimulus necessary for electrochromic materials—and there are in fact quite a number of them—to display this curious trait. To take a simple example of what happens, a small sheet or fragment of electrochromic auto glass of the type used in the Mercedes-Benz SLK might normally be colored dark blue but can turn into a clear, practically untinted piece of glass after a current is passed through it. Once it is in its “untinted” state, one need only pass another current through the glass to effect another change, this time to turn it back into the original dark blue shade. The color alteration is not permanent, but it is persistent, which means the current need not run continually to maintain one of the material’s forms.

Electrochromism is one of the most valued developments in “smart” materials, and has already been applied to things other than serial automobile manufacture, even in the field of transportation. For instance, the ICE 3 trains of the Deutsche Bahn have smart glass dividing the drivers’ cabins from the passengers’ sections. There have also been applications of electrochromic glass in construction, both for commercial buildings and residential ones, with it being dubbed as a smart type of privacy glass.

The smart glass that Mercedes-Benz uses for its cars is taken from the company Research Frontiers, which manufactures what it calls SPD-SmartGlass. The benefits of using such glass for automobiles are impressive: with a typical sunroof or moonroof, for instance, one has no choice but to suffer the possibility of baking heat when summer comes along, even if one does get the benefit of an open-roofed feeling during more clement days. With a sunroof that has the capacity of changing tint levels, however, there is the possibility of simply switching to a darker roof during sunnier or warmer weather, making for a more comfortable ride. Furthermore, with the SmartGlass being capable of rejecting over 99% of UV rays, you get the satisfaction of a healthier drive altogether.

The new Mercedes-Benz SL, with its smart auto glass panoramic roof, is going to be available this season in the United States.

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A Utah windshield repair and replacement technician for Safelite, the auto glass repair company, is gearing himself up for what promises to be a stiff competition on February 8 in New Orleans. That day shall see the national heat of the Safelite company’s auto glass repair and replacement competition, which has been going on for some months now, with divisions and regions having their own heats of the competition to cull the absolute cream of the crop and pit them against each other in a best of the nation contest that decides who shall be representing the country in the international and final heat.

Utah local Brandon Rene, who is representing both his auto glass repair shop and his division, says that he is excited to go to Orleans for the last leg of the US-based contests of the competition. Rene is no greenhorn at this contest: he has been in it once before, following his win of the NW Division contest two years ago. He then went on to participate in the national leg of the contest, but only managed to land 5^th place, which he says he has a few regrets about, considering that what cost him the competition were things that could have been avoided with a little more luck and a little more preparation.

According to Rene, one of the things that sabotaged his work during that last national competition was an accidental bump from a cameraman, which adversely influenced the application of the fresh adhesive he was putting on the auto glass at the time. This, Rene claims, made a huge difference later on to the quality of his work. Another reason Rene cites for his 5^th place win was his own discomposure.

The judges of the competition were told to try and confuse the contestants by giving them ready remarks and even a few suggestions, which Rene said happened to him when the judges visited his section. Unfortunately, said Rene, he had not been expecting that at the time, and had thus ended up being flustered, stumbling around his work.

Now that the Utah local knows what to expect, though, he claims that he is ready for the competition and is in it to win it. Experience makes a difference, according to Rene, who is eager to have a go at first place again. There are definite benefits to winning the auto glass repair competition: not only does the first place winner get to go to Barcelona to represent the United States in the international competition, the winner also gets a rather large cash prize to the tune of $10,000.

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Local police are reminding people to take some time to defrost the auto glass on their vehicles before driving out of their garages. This is coming on the heels of a cold snap that has seen a good number of the country’s highways both snowed over and sheeted with black ice, making travel a treacherous activity for the public. Indeed, the number of road accidents—collisions, specifically—has gone up by leaps and bounds since the sudden drop in temperature, with some highways even posting collision figures in excess of 100. And that is only for the morning rush, not even the count for all collisions in a day.

The problem is that a lot of people still have to go to work despite the bleakness of the weather, and when they have to take with them cars that have frosted over in the night, they often end up cutting auto glass defrost measures and driving out onto the roads without properly clearing the windows of their vehicles. Only recently, a senior citizen in Parksville was handed a ticket after a collision with a bus due to her windshield not being properly defrosted. Fortunately for both parties involved in the accident, there were no injuries that resulted from the collision. Still, police point out, it could have just as easily been a crash that brought on serious injuries for either one or both of them.

Authorities are advising that people take a little effort to get up earlier than usual at this time, in order to give themselves time to defrost the car properly. While some people might find this troublesome, especially in the cold weather, it shall surely protect both the investment that is their car and the invaluable possession that is their health: countless fatal accidents have already happened due to poor visibility of drivers, so a little conscientiousness in this matter is perhaps not uncalled for.

Another reminder experts are giving out is for people to stay away from the quick defrost mentality that usually sees them pouring hot water on their car windshields or even hammering away at it using something that was not designed to be an ice scraper for auto glass. This is one of the fastest ways to end up getting a windshield replacement, so unless you want to have to deal with the costs of this later on, it would be best to do the wise thing and follow the recommended procedures for defrosting auto glass. Use your car’s defrosting mechanism and put that together with an ice scraper, and spend a little time covering your car at night with a proper windshield cover, so that you can prevent frost from building up on it.

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