Paved with shards

So I'm up this morning getting my bike back from the tramshed off rivington, and coming back along London's famous London shaped streets and I was shocked by the sheer number of patches of smashed glass along Death alley (Great eastern street), bethnal grn road, etc. why does this have to be so? I'm sure these smashed bottles and pint glasses are the absolute bane of a lot of ppls life on this forum, and it got me wondering, is there anything we as a community can do about it?

Bars which let people out on the street with pint glasses are only partially responsible, and it happens that individuals will inadvertently drop a glass and break it, but it appears that a lot of the smashing is wanton, and it's always next to the gutter, where we are forced to ride most of the time. if I am out drinking and I see someone smash a glass in the gutter, I'm not sure I would say anything, but I would be miffed, as I might ride through it the next morning.

short of reengineering the structure of glass so it breaks into nice little round pieces, or inventing

I HAVE IT!!!!

coat glass in a thin layer of plastic, so any smashed glass will be stuck together or at least semi contained so it can be easily picked up...

Feasible or not? - Discuss

Yes feasible but adding to the cost of buying glasses which I'm not sure you could convince bar owners of...

I think it would require a substantial change in the bottle and glass manufacturing industries to have this coat, but not necessarily unreasonable, I'm sure some bottles have this coating already lucozade possibly?

puncture proof tyres?

Glass is generally a minor problem in London as long as you ride in those areas of the carriageway that are well-swept by the passage of car wheels. Exceptional times like post-revelry evening mornings are of course very annoying, and it always causes a huge workload for councils to remove all the crap that drunk people smash. But, yes, usual advice--avoid riding too close to the kerb, keep your tyres pumped up well, etc. Don't rely too much on 'puncture-proof' tyres--they won;t necessarily work that well if your positioning isn't right, for instance.