Question for all riders about helmets!!

[help_with_a_helmet]

In your opinion...


Has the use of new materials and changes in safety standards in motorcycle helmets helped to create a safer helmet and are the more expensive models good value for money?

[MarJay]

[Mudskipper]

Pardon?
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"You're clumsy, you eat too much and you behave like a 12 year old boy. But you know what? Every once in a while, you find a thumb."

[Feasty]

[stinkwheel]

My oppinion?

As far as I'm concerned, helmets make little or no difference to the chances of surviving a crash and in some cases actually make things worse.

This is regardless of how modern the materials are or how expensive it was.

They keep the worst of the rain off at this time of year though.
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“Rule one: Always stick around for one more drink. That's when things happen. That's when you find out everything you want to know.”
I did the 2010 Round Britain Rally on my 350 Bullet. 89 landmarks, 3 months, 9,500 miles.

[DidierD]

the way opinion is written there makes me think of an onion pi

mmmm pie


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Bike - '98 Yamaha YZF600 Thundercat Pics

31st March 2008 - Fully converted from four wheels to 2 sets of two wheels

[B_A_B]

[stinkwheel]

[MarJay]

[Nufkamp]

[Hetzer]

[Dreaming]

I read not long ago that they were making helmets slightly less resistant to high shocks because if you have a crash at 70mph and hit the central reservation even if your head survives the rest of you wont. Instead, they made it a bit 'softer' (sorry, this is from memory) so that if you have a crash at 30mph you will only get mild concussion instead of heavy concussion. So it's more effective where it will help, but less effective at the extremes because they assume you'll be dead anyway.

I've not really ridden long enough to know exactly, but my helmet is pretty good. Muffles sound nicely, keeps my head warm (not my neck though ), doesn't fog up, weighs less than my gloves, good range of vision - only thing I'd change is the pinlock insert, as the one I have I don't think is tinted and in sunny weather I end up having to look at the ground because it's so bright.

[Stiffler]

The only thing I don't get with your argument Stinkwheel is the total disregard for road rash. Lets forget the ability of a lid to prevent brain damage, or create cabbages that should have died, or any of the many other negative comments argued about helmets.

I don't know you and I don't know what gear you do or don't wear when you ride, but personally if anything ever goes wrong I like to do everything in my power to hold onto my skin.

My kit includes a sturdy jacket, decent pants, some boots, gloves.... and a lid. Three people I know recently have had a offs and all three had grazes on their lid, and visors ripped off. Now obviously nobody can accurately say what would have happened to their heads otherwise, but the scientist in me thinks a reasonable prediction would be they'd have been left with some level of grazing to the skin. One of those 3 people to have an off was me and the damage to my lid was all on the front (visor and forehead area). I'm a ugly bugger already I don't need some road rash scaring to exacerbate matters!
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Current Bikes - Kawasaki ZX-6R (636) | BMW G650GS

[mistergixer]

In the last crash i had, i vividly remember the noise my helmet made as I slid along the ground. The helmet got really badly scuffed up as i slid, and it whacked on the ground pretty hard as i landed.
I wouldn't like to think what would have happened had i not been wearing it at the time.


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Space Monkey #7
Don Eladio is dead. His capos are dead. You have no one left to fight for. Fill your pockets and leave in peace. Or fight me and die!
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[Dreaming]

[tutton]

Now try the taste of spam in the original fritter
https://www.spam-uk.com/images/fritterpic.jpg
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[stinkwheel]

Or you might not have come off in the first place had you been going more slowly and been able to see more because you didn't have the false sense of security and restricted field of vision that comes with wearing a helmet?
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“Rule one: Always stick around for one more drink. That's when things happen. That's when you find out everything you want to know.”
I did the 2010 Round Britain Rally on my 350 Bullet. 89 landmarks, 3 months, 9,500 miles.

[Ariel Badger]

He was going at 20mph, that is as slow as you can go. Hat saved me from damage 8 weeks back 45mph slide and my brain still functions.
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Bikers make great organ donors, get 115 on your licence today.

[stinkwheel]

Well, these anecdotes are all very nice but consider. Your head is the one part of your body that you reflexively protect over and above any other part of your body.

Break/severely injure anything else? Then why would you have injured your head?

I've come off a bike at 70mph, slid on my back and scraped my helmet along the road as I did so. I'm of the oppinion that had I not been wearing it, my head wouldn't have touched the road at all.

This is not evidence either but it's equally valid.

Anyway, we are getting away from the subject in that it is still safer to assume it isn't going to work at all. Not wearing one isn't an option in most of the UK so please work on the principle that your helmet is going to afford you no significant protection in the case of an accident.

In fact, assume it will make any injuries worse.
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“Rule one: Always stick around for one more drink. That's when things happen. That's when you find out everything you want to know.”
I did the 2010 Round Britain Rally on my 350 Bullet. 89 landmarks, 3 months, 9,500 miles.

[pyx_e]

Maybe even a slight improvement.
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Shiney!
Kawasaki: ER5, Versys, VN900.

[Wafer_Thin_Ham]

Feef will be along in a bit with the link to that study about expensive vs. cheap helmets. I can't remember the link.

EDIT

Found it

https://www.motorcyclistonline.com/gearbox/motorcycle_helmet_review/index.html
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[Wafer_Thin_Ham]

Perhaps this is valid:

https://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/england/somerset/5334208.stm
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[Tristan.]

I've had two 'crash' crashes, as in not just gone into runoff and binned it ones, the first one I came off at 80 and buried the top of my head in some kind of mound, the second I violently/awesomely faceplanted into the pavement, no doubt at all that without a headslider I would of been dead both those times. However I was definatly riding 'enthusiastically' (outside of my limits more realistically) both times, which I wouldnt be if I wasn't wearing a lid and if I had the option, I would definatly go helmetless every now and again, I would simply adjust my riding style to suit.

[DidierD]

[Bru]

Those helmets at the last Lidls sale were interesting, in that they sported a TUV logo. I had thought that the German standard was quite stringent, until I read the small print next to the logo, which stated something like, "Free of toxins". So, your helmet is green, but not actually rated safe by any other known standard? Seemed strange, and dodgy. Did I miss something?