In the past, laminated glass was usually installed in the windshield, with side and rear windows being tempered only.
The difference is that tempered glass is per-stressed so that when it cracks, it shatters into many tiny and dull pieces. Laminated is the same thing, but with layers of plastic sandwiched with layers of tempered glass. Laminated glass will still shatter, but will be held together by the plastic layers.
In an emergency, small improvised, or purpose built tools meant to shatter tempered glass will be useless if the glass is laminated.
I am a professional mechanic, worked at several dealers. Nearly every car had a safety mechanism that was at least one or several of those. The only ones I didnt mention are ones that glow in the dark for trunk releases. But outside of cars that were built before mechanical safety releases were commonly incorporated in design, its not common to see mechanical safety releases that are completely unmarked. Some have a plastic cover, like the transmission neutral release, but they still generally have red/yellow/orange markings, text on them, or they glow in the dark.