Grab one of those crash dummies rigged with accelerometers and impact sensors, suit it up, and catapult it at varying distances and heights .

 

Yep, that's one way you'd do it.

This is part of why some companies' wares don't inspire lots of confidence for me. Just because their front-line, high profile racer gets good stuff (maybe) doesn't mean that's what we get, although their marketing department surely wants us to assume that we do. The only numbers I've ever seen show that we don't get the good stuff, at least from big D. The lack of availability of their airbag system reinforces that point.

So, I look for things that are CE certified where I can, and/or I look for companies that publish test results. In areas where I can't afford the certified stuff (like Spidi's triple-level-2 CE certified textile jacket, which costs 900 Euros!), I'll certainly look at anecdotal crash testing. But in cases like that, I look for items that are the exact same as what's sold to the racers/crashers. ...or better, since I think that going down in traffic on the freeway, or into a guardrail at the outside of a corner, is a LOT more dangerous than going down into the gravel run-off area of a motorcycle track.

I know that not everyone chooses the way I choose, nor do they choose what I choose, and I think that's great that we each GET to choose. I'm simply explaining some of the why that applies for me.