There is a type of motorcycle helmet that I will call the “outlaw” helmet because the people I see wearing these helmets are usually dressed in the classic motorcycle outlaw garb. The helmet is sort of a half shell, usually black in color, that sits on top of the head and covers only the crown.
Do these helmets provide any real protection, or are they just used to satisfy the letter of the law?
Note: This is not intended as a debate on helmet laws - just a question about a particular helmet’s efficacy.
According to this site (the Ottawa Safety Council), “shorty” helmets are basically just enough to satisfy the law, but provide very minimal protection.
And when you think about it, that makes sense. The greater the helmet coverage, the less likely you are to suffer serious abrasions, fractures, etc. to the head. What might only land you unconscious in the hospital with a full face helmet will kill you in something that only meets minimal requirements.
When I ride a motorcycle I wear a full face helmet.
That said, even a half shell will be enough to prevent many brain injuries. The crown of the skull is the weakest, and the forehead and rear of the head most likely to take an impact. The face tends to cushion blows to the brain from that direction.
Consider bicycle helmets for example. The initial impact with the ground in typical motorcycle and bicycle accidents is quite similar, and it is this impact for which helmets typically provide protection. If you smash into a bumper or a brick wall at 60 mph, probably no helmet will help much.
I crashed in a bicycle helmet, which prevented a serious bump to the forhead, and kept my face off the ground for the slide, so instead of a probable head injury, and certain facial lacerations, I suffered only a scraped nose.
There is one medical study which indicates that impacts of limited direction and magnitude to the chin area may cause death (due to brain stem injury) if the rider is wearing a full face helmet, but only fractured jaw otherwise. The ABATE folks tend to exagerate this as “a helmet will break your neck in a crash”. There is one school of thought that Snell foundation standards require overbuilding the chin bars making this scenerio more likely.
Full face helmets can and do prevent breakage of facial bones, and facial lacerations, whidh otherwise occur in a high percentage of motorcycle crashes. While painful, and possibly disfiguing, such injurys DO NOT not tend to be fatal.
There are certainly arguments to be made both ways. I live in a state that does not have a manditory helmet law, so meeting the leagle requirement is not an issue, yet half-shell helmets are still pretty popular with the black tee-shirt crowd.
You can see a bunch of various helmets of this sort at this site: www.choppersupply.com
Assuming you buy one of the DOT ones listed there, you’re probably much better off in a crash than not wearing anything. They’re just like a bike helmet: foam core and a fiberglass shell. You bang your head, less of a chance of a skull fracture which is a very good thing. OTOH, you could probably buy one of the novelty ones and still get by with the police. But you’d be in serious trouble in an accident. Probably just crack in half.
Do you have a cite for the percentage of the head to take impact? I have one from David Hough’s book Proficient Motorcycling. He got studies from Europe saying that around 15% of injuries are caused on each side around the cheek area, or 30% of impacts are on the cheeks. I don’t remember what the rest were, but they were not in the areas where a bennie helmet would normally cover. There is a lot of good information in Hough’s book about accidents, and those types of helmets do not really help.
BTW I really wouldn’t go looking at those pictures, even though they are two clicks away, unless you want to see some nasty stuff.
I was referring to exactly such data in the second-to-last paragraph of my previous post. I can’t find it, (my copy of “Proficient Motorcycling” not handy) but I am guessing you are refering to the graphic that shows a helmet divided into various areas with percentages mapped out on it. Note that it is ONLY the area of injury that is being presented, with no indication of the severity or ultimate outcome resulting from these injuries.
Facial injurys are typically not fatal nor do they commonly result in major or permanant disability the way crainial injuries tend to. The sinus cavities seem to have evoloved in part to protect our brains in the event of facial trauma, and the jaw seems to be a weak link that limits the force transmitted to the skull from a blow to the chin. Road rash to the face would be nasty, and I prefer to avoid it…just saying it probably doesn’t kill you, and heals ( scars) in time.
Here is a cite to the potential downside of full-face helmets
. Note that I do not take this information to imply that one is better off without a helmet than with one, nor even that the potential downside is not worth the facial protection afforded.
As I mentioned previously, I DO wear full face helmets. I just also acknowlage the arguments against them. I also strongly disagree with statements to the effect of “A half-shell helmet is worthless, you might as well wear nothing.”
My answer to the OP is: Half shell helmets DO offer a significant degree of protection against the most devistating and debilitating of injurys common to motorcycle accidents. Helmets with greater coverage offer more protection, and also protect against some common (albeit less devistating) injuries that are also common.
I’m pretty sure that’s what I was thinking of. It’s been awhile since I read that part of the book. While it may not say what happens, doesn’t it stand to reason that if 30% of accidents result in some form of impact in the chin area, then as per your cite above there would be more deaths? If the chin strap forces the jaw bone into the skull then with more people wearing full face helmets there should be an increase in deaths.
Are you saying that a helmet increases the blow to the chin? If two people have the same accident, how is the helmet going to make chin break easier? Also why are there not many deaths in motorcycle racing at speeds well over what people do on the roads?
I think the reason we are seeing more motorcycle deaths is not because of helmets, if that were the case then there would be a lot more deaths in Europe where full face hemlets are the law. The reason I see more deaths is because there are a ton more people on the roads now then ever before. There are also a lot more powerful bikes now as well. I’ve been riding for 7 years now, and even in that time bikes have gotten more powerful. On one of my mailing lists there has been talk of people’s first bike, many learned in the 60s and 70s and the biggest bikes then were in the 300-500cc range. Now you really couldn’t get a bike that small. I would say the increase in the deaths in the 70s that the ABATE people used was at least partly because of the increase in the size and speed of motorcycles.
This is not to say that a shorty helmet will not help in some cases, but I don’t think that it’s the best thing to wear.