How to escape zip-ties: Learn the simple maneuver used to break makeshift handcuffs

Hundreds of thousands of people go missing every year in the United States -- and for the unlucky few who are abducted by strangers with malicious intent, the ability to escape zip ties could be one of the most useful skills.

Zip-tie restraints are one of the most common ways criminals restrain their victims in human abductions -- but they aren't a foolproof tool for would-be abductors.

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With the right training, almost anyone can wrestle free of the makeshift handcuffs.

While your natural instinct may be to wiggle your wrists to free your hands out of the plastic ties, that method is likely to be painful and cut your skin.

The easiest way to escape zip-tie restraints, as shown in the video above, is by using your shoelaces instead.

In the clip, the man bound by zip-ties demonstrates how to free himself of the restraints, first, by untying his shoe laces.

Leaning over, he then pulls both of the shoe laces through the bottom of the restraints using his fingers.

He ties them together.

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Then he raises his legs from the floor and bends his knees.

He thrusts them from side to side in a sawing-like action against the zip-ties, which break the plastic restraints almost instantly.

On average, there are 90,000 people missing in the U.S. at any given time, according to the National Missing and Unidentified Persons System -- approximately 50,000 of which are adults and 30,000 are below the age of 18.