Postby Toff » 05 Nov 2008, 16:11
I haven't had to buy a helmet for myself for about 10 years. I still use my 1997 Giro Ventoux. However, at the time I bought it, I did A LOT of research into helmets and standards. Some of this info is 10 years old, but here's what I learned.
- Each country does their own safety testing, and enforces their own saftey standard.
- Safety standards are not universal. There is a lot of variance in what constitutes an acceptable helmet from country to country.
- The Australian Standard was nowhere near the best in the world. The best standard in the world was the USA SNELL Standard. For example, the Australian standard does not incorporate a load distribution test, as is required under SNELL. In fact, the Australian standard simply involves dropping a helmet from a height of 1.5m. No helmet would be likely to be moving at more than 20km/hr if dropped from that height, and most cyclists travel much faster than that speed when riding. Further, a light helmet is likely to hit the ground with lower speed, due to wind resistance, so the Australian standard is biased towards less dense helmets, rather than helmets which provide superior cushioning of impact. E.g. It is entirely possible that a styrofoam fruit box could pass AS2063! Lastly, it is usually shearing forces that cause head injuries, not direct blows, yet no test exists to compare helmets' abilities to protect against shearing forces.
- Manufacturers did not need to pass the Australian Standard to sell a helmet in Australia. The BV website still says that you can buy helmets in Oz without AS2063 certification, due to a loophole.
- Whilst Standards are useful, they should not be the only factor you rely upon when choosing a helmet. A manufacturer only needs to have one helmet pass the simulated crash test in order for a helmet to be certified. You don't know if it was the first helmet, or the 1,000th helmet that passed that test.
Statistically, the certification means nothing. If you only destroy one helmet, then you are relying on a sample size of 1 to draw conclusions about the entire population of helmets being used. Any statistician will tell you that there is no useful information that can be obtained from the smallest of sample sizes. You need to destroy somewhere around 1,500 helmets to obtain data about the population of helmets in use. Since no manufacturer will do that, the best data comes from studies of accidents. These provide an indication of which helmets actually seem to have saved lives.
- My Giro Ventoux still has stickers in it that says it passes the SNELL B90 Standard, and the Australian AS2063 standard. This is long after ALL the protective padding has eroded away. Incedentally, despite so much technical advancement in helmets over the last 10 years, the Australian standard AS2063 has not changed in any way to recognise this, whereas other countries have updated their standard (I.e. SNELL B90 is now B95).
- Anyway, if I had bought a quality helmet from overseas, and done my research, I would have no qualms about using it with or without the AS2063 sticker. I'd also be confident going up against anyone in a court of law with some of the findings I've got. (There is alot more info that I haven't brought up yet...)
