I don't know if this has been on here before but I came across a really long but really goodhelmet article by motorcylist magazine - http://www.motorcyclistonline.com/ge...helmet_review/. They do impact tests on helmets from 16 brands and the results are very surprising. There is a letter from Snelltowards the end and also a follow up letter from motorcyclist

 

You started it, I didn't. I say that because the conclusions in the article tend to **** alot of people off, especially those who spent big bucks on their helmets. Anyhow, the article came out a couple of years ago and Motorcyclist, for a time at least, lost a fair amount of ad revenue from some of the high end helmet manufacturers as a result of publishing the article. They take on the holy grail of helmet mythology- that being that Snell rated helmets are by definition better than DOT only helmets.
The article was prompted by a couple of academic types who have problems with the Snell standard- particularly Snell's two hit, one spot test. In this test, the helmet has to absorb the energy of two massive hits in the same spot without passing too much energy to the head. This is the test that most DOT only helmets can't pass. So far so good. It's nice to be able to take two hits in the same spot in the event of a getoff, right? Well, according to the academics, the problem is that in order to pass this test, the Snell manufacturers use stiffer foam than is normally used in DOT only helmets that won't compress as much from the first hit and thus will be able to handle the second hit. The downside, they claim, is that this stiffer foam will actually pass more energy to the head in the event of a single blow to one spot than softer foam will- enough so that it could mean the difference between having a headache for a couple of days and sustaining permanent brain injury. Furthermore, they claim that in the real world, taking two hits to one spot almost never happens.
So Motorcyclist decided to put these claims to the test and started to smash helmets at various spots and intencities to see how much energy was transmitted to a headform. They gathered a number of helmets from various manufacturers made to either DOT only , Sell, and European standards. The results, the DOT only lids outperformed their Snell and Euro Spec counterparts almost across the board, and, generally speaking, the Euro lids outperformed the Snell helmets. The helmet with the best scores was a $100 lid from Z1, I believe, that had significantly better sores than some Snell helmets costing 4 or 5 times as much. They also reviewed the studies that had been made covering thousands of motorcycle accidents and concluded that taking two massive hits to the same spot on a helmet was a truely rare occurance.
They certainly throw a monkeywrench into what has long been conventional wisdom about DOT versus Snell helmets. I never knew there was Euro standard (nor did I know that Snell lids are a rarity in Europe- can't pass Euro testing). Snell's response was lame. Their main critique was that Motorcyclist primarily relied on dropping helmets onto a slab of asphalt on the assertion that this replicates 3/4 of helmet hits. Snell cited one study which showed that helmet impacts in the real world involved (approximately) 75% impacts with round objects, 15% inpacts with flat objects, and 10% impacts with edges (like curbs), and thus, they claim, these test only replicated a small percentage of helmet impacts. If you think about it, though, this can't be right. What are all these round objects we're hitting. Most accidents invove contact with the road surface, a flat object.
Anyhow, it was interesting reading and certainly affected my thinking. As I said, the article is a few years old, and I'm surprised that I really haven't heard much on this subject since the original article appeared.

 

Interesting article to say the least, with some surprising conclusions. It makes me think we should have an independent testing agency who perform a standardized set of tests on each helmet as they are released. This agency could then provide performance data to the consumer, who can then use that additional information when they want to make a decision. The controversy, of course, would be who decides what kinds of tests best approximate the type of real-world collisions a motorcyclist's head is likely to encounter. Because really, the DOT, Snell, ECE, etc. standards only tell you whether your helmet meets their minimums for performance -- it's only a yes or no. The type of info in this article -- maximum G's exerted for various types of impact -- is much more telling than simply knowing whether your helmet meets the DOT or Snell standard.

I would much rather like to know, for example, the maximum number of G's that would be exerted on my head while wearing my Shoei RF-1000 under various conditions, yet, I have no such information. I only know that it meets the DOT and Snell standards. Don't get me wrong, having these standards in place is a good thing and it's better than the old days before any such certifications. But I think we still need more information and rigorous, independent testing with published results in order to make the best decision about what we protect our heads with!

 

lol that is what SNELL is.

 

I was under the impression that helmet manufacturers pay the Snell foundation to test their helmets. Afterwards, if Snell approves the helmet, the manufacturer can stick a Snell sticker on their helmet. I don't believe Snell provides performance data like the kind given in this article (maximum G's exerted, degree of compression of lining material). They just give a thumbs up or thumbs down if the helmet meets their minimums.

 

Good find but it is a little old as has been stated before. Last June in my accident I was wearing a Icon Mainframe, which was tested in this article, and another Icon helmet. I am glad to say that I was wearing the mainframe because it had 2G's on impact 181 verus 183 on the other model. I wish they would have tested my new helmet KBC Force RR.