But in all our years of owning and renting, we've never had any glass panes break.
Owning and renting WHAT though?
Tempered glass is harder and more durable than sheet glass.
And if it should break, then that's when safety part comes into to play.
Imagine a fairly tight fitting piece of sheet glass in an arcade cabinet.... now move that cabinet and visualize the stresses being put on the glass, a little twisting, a little bumping around, etc. Plain sheet glass doesn't like all that very well and tends to break into lovely razor sharp shards.
Not to mention when people are playing on a cab and beating the dickens out of it or possibly poking at and smacking the glass.
Doing the same with a piece of tempered glass is more likely to have less a chance of it breaking.
Sheet glass is good for sliding straight up and down on tracks..... they're called "windows".
It's also kinda like asking why do they use tempered glass on pinball machines instead plain sheet glass ?
I have a Hyperball machine that will show you
exactly why they use tempered.
