The UK Department of Transport is now providing star ratings for motorcycle helmets, in a bid to improve safety and offer the buyer a rough idea of each product's protective qualities.
Freelance motorcycle journalist Alastair Walker reports...
Most UK bikers don't really known how motorcycle helmets are designed, manufactured and tested. Once there were BSI standards, now we have the UN ECE 22.05 tests, but many riders still make a judgement by asking other bikers for recommendations, or assess the overall construction, comfort and fit, when trying lids on in a shop.
But all that is changing as the UK government backed SHARP ( Safety Helmet Assessment Ratings Programme ) comes onstream in 2008, offering ratings from one to five stars for most popular biking lids. The idea is to give consumers an idea of the potential protective qualities a helmet might have, with one star at the lower end, and five stars being the top rating.
The initial DoT SHARP results are suprising, as some helmets from top brands like Arai, Shoei and AGV only made three stars, whilst budget brands like Nitro or Lazer were rated five out of five in the SHARP tests. All of which begs the question; what testing methods are they using exactly, and is a cheap £50 helmet as good as an expensive £300 plus item?
SHARP tests are designed to log the effects of a specific impact of between 6.5 and 8.5 metres per second on specially selected points of the helmet's outer shell - both head-on, and a simulated glancing blow. The impact speed is slightly higher than the existing ECE 22.05 regulations, but SHARP don't do any testing on the chinbar section of the lid, or do a repeated impact on one area - like Arai do in their own factory tests for example.
Ferry Brouwer, who has spent 27 years with Arai Europe commented;
" The SHARP ratings are supposed to save 50 lives per year, a good aim, which we agree with of course. But the new tests do not go far enough. SHARP do not look at the methods of construction, a manufacturer's track record in racing accidents say, nor do they use repeated, or random impacts.
"In the USA the Snell Foundation do random impact point testing for example, and by NOT telling manufacturers which points will be tested it prevents makers from strengthening particular areas on the helmet shell. Arai also believe that a penetration test of the shell is crucial, as no two motorcycle accidents are the same and such incidents can happen sadly."
Watching the Arai testing rig drop helmets onto solid posts, suffer the penetration test, and learning how important it is to keep the helmet's inner EPS layer free from severe temperature changes, human sweat, dirt from gloves, or damage from placing your bike keys inside your lid, was an education.
For example, did you know that the inner polystyrene lining degrades in its protective qualities by around 3-5% per year, and sweat may accelerate that decline in the EPS layer's impact dissipation? So the less your head sweats in hot weather the longer that inner lining will keep doing its job. Fact is, in the real world, the performance of the helmet's air vents in hot weather matters - your head needs to stay cool.
There are plenty of aspects of motorcycle helmet design and manufacture which are still not tested by SHARP and all UK bikers would surely benefit from the most rigorous, in-depth and random, lab-based testing regime that can be done at a reasonable cost by the governement.
Arai offer the following information and tips to any biker looking to buy a new helmet;
- Check the fit carefully. It should be snug, but not uncomfortably tight, with little up and down, or side-to-side movement when worn.
- The `D ring' type chinstrap fastening offers the most accurate adjustment to an individual head, rather than the `seat belt' type catches some manufacturers use. A helmet has to stay on your head in an accident to save your life.
- Because of the gradual reduction of performance in any helmet's inner EPS lining, Arai recommend that motorcycle helmets are replaced every five years depending on use.
- If you drop your helmet, it may not be seriously damaged. Any UK Arai purchaser can have their Arai helmet inspected by factory trained techicians, for free, at major road race meetings, the TT festival, MotoGP etc.
- Each Arai helmet is hand-made in Japan and tested at nine separate impact points, with a total of 36 separate impacts utilised in testing - way beyond any current impact testing standard.
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