Canadian lid laws catch up

ViperZ said:
Ummm, excuse my ignorance, how is Snell and DOT crap?
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+1

It is saying they are allowing the ece 22.05 along with DOT and SNELL but says they don't know if they are better or worse, They re just recognizing it for use on Candian roads.


"In a series of independent tests reflecting realistic crash conditions, a 2006 study* found that helmets qualified to the US Federal Motor Vehicle Safety Standard 218 (known as DOT) and helmets qualified to both DOT and ECE provide better protection as measured in those particular laboratory tests than helmets qualified to the British Standards Institute and Snell. However, the same author notes that research has never shown helmets qualified to one standard to be significantly better or worse in actual crash protection."
 
In general, the older Snell standard had piss-poor protection on first impact, but was designed to be pretty good in multiple impact situations. Most ECE/DOT lids tested a lot better on first impact and were superior in real-life situations. Since then, Snell put in the effort to update their standard to match ECE/BSI. Either sticker will be good but the fewer stickers they have to put on the lids, the less markup to fleece us consumers with.
 
These threads are getting ridiculous, any helmet is better than none.
If you think a snell, dot, or the latest 2013 model will be the difference between living or dying in a crash, you're fooling yourself.
I'm sure 99% of fatal moto accidents in Canada would have the same outcome, regardless of the brand of helmet. ( illegal beenie lids don't count obviously)
Evel Knievel crashed a million times in the crappiest, loose fitting helmet you ever saw, and he didn't die from head trauma.
Evel.jpg
 
Of course any lid is better than none. As far as the standards are concerned, the devil is in the details and the differences would very generally show up in degrees of various traumatic brain injuries. To a great degree yes, they're all pretty close but there's lots of articles out there pointing out these differences and after reading lots of them I preferred the ECE standard (like many many others)

Sure, Evel didn't die but that's not to say the fit didn't matter at all.

At any rate, rejoice because now we have a much larger selection of helmets to choose from. It's ridiculous it took this long to happen but I'm very happy it finally has.
 
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AGAVE said:
These threads are getting ridiculous, any helmet is better than none.
If you think a snell, dot, or the latest 2013 model will be the difference between living or dying in a crash, you're fooling yourself.
I'm sure 99% of fatal moto accidents in Canada would have the same outcome, regardless of the brand of helmet. ( illegal beenie lids don't count obviously)
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That's true, but the provincial government didn't wanna recognize a perfectly good standard until now and that's the point made in the OP
 
Do all visors say this, or only some "This visor is not shatter proof."

What's the deal? Are some helmets visors shatter proof, or none of them?

-Jamie M.
 
ViperZ said:
Jamie, the short answer is probably 'none are guaranteed to be shatter proof'. Check this out: http://www.webbikeworld.com/motorcycle-helmets/visors/
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Wow, very interesting.

When my friend wrote off her brand spanking new CBR 250:

[video=youtube;KjNqY9ENVkM]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KjNqY9ENVkM[/video]

Her visor shattered and cut her face very badly. It was an HJC CL-15. I told her to buy a much better quality helmet and when she went shopping, she noticed pretty much every helmet except for Arai had a little sticker on the visor "not shatter proof". I told her to call Arai before she makes her decision. Arai said their visors are not shatter proof but they are continually testing new materials to build an optically correct shatter proof visor. Holding them back is that a shatterproof visor has to be so soft that it would scratch and cloud very easily.

-Jamie M.
 
toysareforboys said:
Wow, very interesting.

When my friend wrote off her brand spanking new CBR 250:

Her visor shattered and cut her face very badly. It was an HJC CL-15. I told her to buy a much better quality helmet and when she went shopping, she noticed pretty much every helmet except for Arai had a little sticker on the visor "not shatter proof". I told her to call Arai before she makes her decision. Arai said their visors are not shatter proof but they are continually testing new materials to build an optically correct shatter proof visor. Holding them back is that a shatterproof visor has to be so soft that it would scratch and cloud very easily.

-Jamie M.
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I remember watching this video on youtube. Hopefully bigger manufacturers put more money into testing their helmets and visors.
 
But seriously, this change in law should be given some press (anyone see it mentioned in any Canadian motorcycle magazines?). This is a considerable step forward. A bit late, but I'll take it.
 
CruisnGrrl said:
Having a good lid can make the difference between being brain damaged or not brain damaged
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or severe brain damaged vs non-severe brain damage.

i have been in contact with my mpp (kim craitor) over this for a long-while. hopefully he was involved in this.

as for shatter-proof, very few (if any visors) can be certified as "shatterproof." putting that shatterproof lable would open them to any liability. "shatter" is not a technical term, so any "break" could be deemed "shatter" in the light of the law.

my shark visor 2.8mm (at the time in 04) did not shatter despite direct impact, but did break into two pieces, and indented in several spots.
 
vociferous said:
my shark visor 2.8mm (at the time in 04) did not shatter despite direct impact, but did break into two pieces, and indented in several spots.
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My shark visor in my head on accident with an SUV also did not shatter. I could see the blue chrome left on the hood of the suv, so I know the visor took the direct hit. I was initially a bit ****** that the visor came off the helmet, but when I saw the dent my helmet made in his hood, and the steel bolts holding the visor mount on actually snapped, I figured the visor did it's job :)

-Jamie M.
 
ECE recognition will be nice. For most people, it just means more helmets available here. Also it means a better certification than just DOT for flip front helmets. The flaw being with DOT is that it is not actually a certification - it is a helmet standard that manufacturers design and test to, but you're taking their word for it as they are not independently tested.

No I'm not trying to start the argument again. Yes I know that there is one or two Snell certified modular helmets now.
 
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