17 years of auto glass here......
safety glass.......laminated ..2 pieces of glass with pollycarbonate sheet between the glass
tempered glass....glass that has been heated almost to its melting point then flash cooled....causing it to be "in tension"..
safety glass will crack .....but not fall into pieces....
tempered will shatter"popcorn" into millions of small pieces....
all w/shields are laminated....basically designed to keep you ugly a#$ in the car when you hit the w/shield in a collision.....
tempered glass was designed to help lesson the amount of weight in the car..tryin to save gas anyway they can...it also was considered to be safer in the event of a roll over"where the doors wont open the glass can be broke or will break amd fall away"....plus in the event the car is submerged......you can break the glass and excape...
laminated glass will say "SAFTEY GLASS" on it
tempered will say "TEMPERED"
any glass shop can cut laminated glass for you with your old glass as a pattern....
or fthey can cut some plate glass and send it off to be tempered.....
i have done alot of glass in the old stuff around here and replaced the side glass with tempered......smoked glass