{"id":1636,"date":"2008-02-11T04:13:32","date_gmt":"2008-02-11T04:13:32","guid":{"rendered":"0"},"modified":"2008-02-11T06:52:36","modified_gmt":"2008-02-11T06:52:36","slug":"motorcycle_helm","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/marcdanziger.com\/?p=1636","title":{"rendered":"Motorcycle Helmets"},"content":{"rendered":"

Our motorcycle helmets are three years old this month, so it’s time to replace them. <\/p>\n

The manufacturers say 5 years, but we wear them almost every day, and live in smoggy Southern California, so our white Shoei RF1000’s are headed for the bin in the garage.<\/p>\n

We just ordered new ones, and I thought I’d take a moment – for those folks who ride or know people who ride – and make a few comments.<\/p>\n

First, let me be really clear. No one should ride a motorcycle without a helmet – in my view, a full-face helmet.<\/b> Why? The answer is just under the fold.<\/p>\n


\n\"GL%20helmet.JPG\"
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Here’s the helmet TG was wearing five<\/strike> seven<\/u> years ago when she crashed on Breckinridge Rd. in central California. She was going about 40 when she hit gravel, tucked the front end, and flew over the bars – landing on the shield and chinbar of her helmet.<\/p>\n

She was knocked unconscious and concussed…but imagine what would have happened if she’d been wearing an open-face helmet or no helmet at all. I do, often.<\/p>\n

I’ve always bought the best helmets I could afford, and this buying cycle was no different. But our buying decision was also influenced by this article, in Motorcyclist magazine<\/a> – which pointed out that for street riding, the best helmets – the Arais, Shoeis, etc. – might not be the safest.<\/p>\n

Why? Because they are manufactured to meet the Snell standard, which requires an extremely rigid helmet. Rigid enough to pass too much impact on to your fragile brainstem.<\/p>\n

Instead, they found that for low-speed (non-racing speed) crashes, the safest helmets were often the cheapest. The highest-ranked helmet they tested was the ZR-1, an $80 helmet I never would have even looked at. After the test, I bought one for Littlest Guy.<\/p>\n

The helmet is noisy, not as comfortable as a higher-end one, and probably won’t wear as well. But for the infrequent times he rides on the back of my bike, it may just keep his annoyingly precocious noggin safe.<\/p>\n

Yesterday, TG and I bought helmets that meet the European standard for safety – meaning that they are softer. She got an AGV Ti-Tech, and I bought a Shark RSR2.<\/p>\n

Once we’ve ridden with them for a while, I’ll give some opinions.<\/p>\n

Yes, I know that – in very few cases – people have been injured or killed by their helmets. A few people are killed by drugs that save hundreds of thousands as well; you have to weigh the odds. And for those who say that they can’t see or hear as well in a helmet – I’ll call bull. I’ve ridden once with an open-faced helmet, and even with good glasses, the wind in my eyes meant that I couldn’t see nearly as well as I can in the still air inside my visor. And the wind noise in my naked ears is louder than the noise my ears are subjected to inside a helmet.<\/p>\n

So if you know someone who rides…send them this picture and link. I may talk about the issues in making helmet use mandatory some time soon. That’ll get some comments…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Armed Liberal bought a new motorcycle helmet…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/marcdanziger.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1636"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/marcdanziger.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/marcdanziger.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/marcdanziger.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/marcdanziger.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1636"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/marcdanziger.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1636\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/marcdanziger.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1636"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/marcdanziger.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1636"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/marcdanziger.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1636"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}