[ST] Junk helmets, was Helmet Recommendation

["Marc Van Est" <MarcVE@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

I have to throw in my two cents:

 A good friend had a low speed off last year.

She was wearing a "budget" helmet, quite a well known brand but not an
Arai/ Shoei/ HJC/ Shark etc. I wont mention which one, but if someone
wants to know ping me off line.

The helmet split when her head hit the ground, resulting in injuries to
her jaw and severe concussion.

We looked at the helmet, and could only conclude is was just not well
manufactured. There's no way it should have split for the type of
impact.

I think there is more to ....$10 head... Than we give credit. Buy a
premium helmet and there is just that much more chance that the quality
control is better.


Cheers


Marc,


Cape Town

-----Original Message-----
From: st-bounces@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
[mailto:st-bounces@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx] On Behalf Of Emile Nossin
Sent: Tuesday, August 08, 2006 3:50 AM
To: ST@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx
Subject: Re: [ST] Helmet Recommendations for Headset

>From: Kevin.Dicks@xxxxxxx
>Once a helmet has passed all the applicable tests, any extra expense is

>only paying for comfort/fit/service etc. - you pay extra not for more 
>protection, but for other factors.

Well, you'd think so. But an extensive test I have here of 10 flip-up
helmets suggests otherwise. They tested every aspect of the helmet,
including crash tests. Some helmets did do better than others, the
cheapest usually doing worse than the more expensive ones. The worst was
the Vemar helmet, that appeaered to have significant weak spots with
multiple bump tests. Also the chin section on that helmet only closes
after a lot of effort and there's even a risc that parts of the
construction bend or break.

The best (in terms of safety, rated "good") helmets were the Schuberth
C2 and Shoei Synchrotec II (Caberg Justissimo 3rd in safety, middle of
the pack in total score, BMW (= Schuberth) helmet performed bad when
testing the damping of the chin section, but BMW said it was a
production error which is now solved). Worst helmets were the HJC
CL-MAX, Nolan N102, MTR K10 and Vemar VXD Dual Evo (rated good, good,
sufficient and the last one barely sufficient).

So there is a difference in safety and it seems that it usually (in this
case at least, except for the BMW production error) also correlated with
price.

If someone wants to see the total results table of these 10 helmets
(test in Dutch again, sorry), let me know.

Emile
www.piloot.com

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