How Does Your Helmet Rate?

I was surfing the web today and ran across something I found that surprised me about helmets. Now before you go off an rant about the merits (or not) of helmets you can stop right there. This post is not about that subject and I don't want to open that bag of snakes. I know everyone has strong feelings on this subject and it has been debated on many blogs. This post is going to deal with the standards in which they are certified. 

I for one bought my new helmet because of it's certifying rating which happens to be the Snell M2005 rating. I thought it was the standard which meant "the best" protection. Stacy at bolty.net did a review on the helmet she bought. While reading her post she stated she bought her helmet because it had ECE 22.05 certification. (Page 102 of this PDF have all the test specs for all certification testing.) I had never heard of that rating before reading her post. So I did some reading to see what it meant. Disclaimer: Stacy I didn't steal your link coming up, I found it today while doing research. I didn't realize until making the link to your post that you had one of the following links.

One of the first links I came across was site called SHARP (BTW they have a great video on helmet sizing) which is a government site for the UK. The reason for going there is I wanted to see how my new helmet rated compared to others. Since they have different models in the UK I picked the XR100 which is for all practical purposes is the same as my RF1000. Or is it? They look the same, have the same feature and for all I can tell are the very same helmet. Except for the certification, the XR is ECE 22.05 and my RF is Snell M2005 rated. Why?

First it has to do with the standards they have set for Europe. But why isn't the Snell rating good enough if it is "the best?" There comes the fly in the ointment. It seems that maybe the Snell standard might be "to good." Huh, to good?

It appears that many experts think the Snell standard is set to high and as such the helmet is too stiff. To stiff? Isn't that what you want? In this article written by a Jim Brown for Motorcyclist (warning VERY long read) these experts have different ideas on how helmets should work. They seem to think the 300g limit that Snell sets is to high. While that is great for large impacts most (Hurt Report say 75%) motorcycle crashes don't generate that much force. They want to see the G limit no higher then 250g and some think that is still to high.

Now just for a counter point on Mr. Browns article here is one at Sportrider.com. I find it interesting that Mr. Brown doesn't mention the short comings of the DOT rating verse the Shell rating namely the amount of head that is covered and other factors.

What I find funny is how United States government is so pro-active helmet but finding helpful information on the web like that of the SHARP site is so hard to find. I searched the NHTSA for related material and the best I could find was this NHTSA link  that states:

• NHTSA is developing a video that will be viewable on its Web site in Spring 2007 to assist consumers on how to determine whether a motorcycle helmet fits them properly and how to identify whether their motorcycle helmet is compliant with FMVSS 218.

Do you think I could find it? In fact I can't even find document FMVSS218. Then here is the real kicker, the NHTSA don't even test the helmets, instead relying on the manufacture to use "the honor system" to have carried out the test before putting on the DOT sticker. Sure they do some random spot testing, all of forty helmets a year, lowered from seventy five because the percentage of failure was so high. Where as for Shell testing the manufacture pays them to test their helmets as well as random off the shelf stored bought helmets too.

Now I'm not even going to claim to be an expert on this in the least. To be honest my head is hurting are studying all of this. But I think if I'm going to spend my hard earned cash on something, I think I'll trust my money to someone who is willing to for sure test their product. That's what it boils down to me. I trust the Snell sticker on my helmet.

I'm just posting this so you can determine for yourself what helmet is best for you. The cool thing is as time marches on smart people figure out new things all the time which translate in to better products. With debates like this one, people are pushed to learn more even faster.

All of this led me to the poll on the side. I want to know if it matters to you what certification is on the helmet. Ask your friends to voted too. I'm really curious if it makes a difference to people.

fasthair