A closer look
Driving in the early 1900s required a sturdy pair of goggles and a complete disregard for eating bugs. The first cars were completely open-air because manufacturers believed slapping a massive sheet of fragile plate glass directly in front of a driver's face was a recipe for blinding lacerations during a crash. It wasn't until a brilliant French chemist named Édouard Benedictus accidentally dropped a flask coated in plastic cellulose, inventing shatter-resistant safety glass, that windshields became standard. Before that, catching a rock to the face was just part of the commute.
