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COPYRIGHT 2005 Ehlert Publishing Group
There has never been any serious question--helmet use saves lives. Doubt it? Sir, I'm about to rap you upside the head with this baseball bat. Would you prefer I do it on your bare noggin, or would you rather be wearing a layer of plastic or fiberglass backed with energy-absorbing foam and cushioned with soft cloth?
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While there is some speculation that helmeted riders may sustain more neck injuries caused by the additional weight of the helmet, there is absolutely no question that being flung 6 feet in the air at 70 mph and landing on your head will likely kill and certainly injure you seriously if you're not wearing a helmet. Wear a quality full-face helmet, however (like any one we test here that passes the minimum federal standard), and there's a very good chance that your head will be among the least of your hurts when you come to a stop.
WHY FULL-FACE?
I'll never forget walking into my local motorcycle shop and being shocked to see the familiar clerk with his face full of purple welts, dried blood, scratches and bandages. "Fight with your wife?" I asked. He had crashed his bike at about 40 mph on a city street while wearing an open-face helmet.
Any full-face helmets we test here would have saved him that facial grief. Not only do they offer a greater range of coverage, but a full-face helmet is much more likely to remain on your head than other styles of helmets when you go tumbling down the road.
HOW HELMETS WORK
A helmet consists of an interior comfort liner, a layer of expanded polystyrene (EPS) foam and an outer shell. The shell is made of layers of plastic, fiberglass or some composite (often using lightweight fibers) that is designed to spread the impact over a wide area, resist penetration and prevent the EPS from shredding. And the shell is a major component in style.
The EPS foam, which resides between the shell and comfort liner, is a more high-tech version of what's used in foam drink cups. The EPS liner is about an inch thick and made to precise specifications so that it will crush at a controlled rate upon impact, dispersing the energy that otherwise would have been fed into the rider's cranium.
Because the liner is designed to crush, it is very possible that even when an accident-involved helmet exhibits no outward sign of damage, the EPS inside may be squashed flat--used up. That's why it's important that any accident-involved helmet either be discarded, or inspected by a competent expert.
A helmet also requires a good retention system. Be certain your helmet is fully and snugly strapped on every time you ride.
NOISE CONTROL
A less noisy ride is a more relaxing ride, which is why we at Rider tend to wear earplugs when motorcycling. Still, helmets are much quieter today than they were some years ago, as the manufacturers have come to understand that wind noise is principally generated from two areas. One is the opening under the helmet; that's why the comfort liner of most helmets now extends quite a distance inward from the shell. You may have to push your head through it, as the fit is often quite snug along the bottom. Some even have a chin curtain in the front to seal better. All this is in the interest of preventing wind from noisily coming up from below.
The second cause of noise is protrusions from the helmet, which is why many manufacturers have done away with side-plates over the shield pivot area. Many now utilize flat shields that place their pivoting mechanism on the inside. Protruding vents can generate noise, and helmet makers are now doing all kinds of interesting things with shell shapes in the interest of style, aerodynamics and noise control.
PRICE
Time was when you could look at a helmet on the shelf and easily tell the $350 full-face from the $50 model--it was in their shape, paint and graphics, and in the look of the shield and venting. Today, helmets are better than ever. Graphics and comfort liners on even the least expensive name-brand helmets are of very good quality. Quality differences between high-dollar and inexpensive helmets are now mostly in the area of feel (but not necessarily the function) of the venting, and other fit-and-finish issues. Our biggest complaint is that many helmets do not have very good ventilation systems.
Another factor in price is that most helmet production has moved overseas. None of the helmets in our test is manufactured in the United States. Many of the less-expensive lids are now made in Korea, Taiwan and China, while the high-priced models come from Japan and Europe.
HELMET SAFETY STANDARDS
As for their protective abilities, for any helmet to be legally sold for motorcycle use in the United States it must pass the U.S. Department of Transportation (DOT) minimum standard. To meet the standard, the DOT specifies that examples of these helmets must have been tested in a controlled drop on a flat surface and passed no more than 400Gs--400 times the force of gravity--to an instrumented headform inside. That 400G number was chosen as it was considered to be the maximum amount of force the human brain could withstand without suffering damage.
In the interest of making more protective helmets, a number of other standards that allow even less energy transfer have been advanced. The best known to American riders is the Snell Memorial Foundation standard, and we're now seeing helmets sold here that meet the BSI (British standard) and ECE (European standard). All of these...
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