Choosing
right Motorcycle helmet can make a difference…. ….literally between life and death. But how does an ordinary guy in street make an informed decision about what kind of helmets give best protection? There are so many makes, models and styles. Not to mention DOT approved, Snell approved, ECE approved! It is enough to make you go goggle eyed when confronted with so much information.
Tests have shown that it is perfectly possible to suffer a fatal injury falling off a stationary bike if you hit your unprotected head on kerb, so clearly choosing right helmet is important.
But which one?
Wouldn’t it be easier if someone just said, “Look, when you are in a crash, you need to protect this part of you head, because this is part that is most likely to get hurt”…
Well that’s what I thought. But it wasn’t that easy. The kind of information you need to make that kind of call requires someone, somewhere to look at a whole bunch of motorcycle crashes, look at motorcycle helmet damage, assess where point of impact occurred and put information into a form that allows ordinary motorcyclists (like you and me) to make a decision for themselves.
However, good news is that if you look hard enough, information is available. A study was carried out a few years ago by Deitmar Otte, at Medizinsche Hochschule in Hannover, Germany on damage incurred to helmets worn by motorcyclists involved in accidents. His analysis was extremely detailed; in fact it was far to detailed for me to go into here, but it was extremely important.
What I am going to do is tell you in a nutshell, what parts of your head are most likely to be hurt in a motorcycle accident, based on Herr Otte’s findings. The rest is up to you…
