Total Motorcycle Community Forums

That Motorcyclist article was great. If you can't read it, the conclusions that I came away with are:
- the Snell tests are overly severe and not representative of real world crashes
- the maximum allowable Gs (impact force) is way too high
- in order to meet the Snell tests, the helmets are more rigid which results in transferring more Gs to your head
- most manufacturers get the Snell ratings for marketing purposes

Their top helmet was also one of the cheapest, the Z1-ZRP. I just went out a couple days ago to buy a helmet. Tried everything from $500 Arai's to the cheapo $89 Z1's - best fit for me (and I hope the $$ wasn't influencing me) was not the ZRP but it was a Z1 helmet two levels up with a Snell rating ($150). I went expecting to buy the DOT helmet and ended up with something else. At the end of the day, the fit will probably matter more than a few more G's in a test article...

YMMV!

It's due to the never-ending discussion over Motorcyclist vs. Snell on whether or not Snell offers better or worse protection.

It's an interesting discussion, but real crash data would be much more interesting. One of the worst performing helmets in the magazine article is the Scorpion EXO 700 (which I own and love). It was real crash tested by this rider (http://www.ex500riders.com/forums/viewtopic.php?t=2829). There's no way to tell what kind of forces he endured, but he's alive and well.

It seems most (all?) of the "nicer" helmets are Snell approved, so it may be hard to find a comfy, quiet, well-vented helmet without a Snell sticker.

I love my full-face fulmer. It's quiet, comfortable, DOT rated and I got it on sale for $99. The OTHER thing that came from that article was that just about all the helmets on the market today (I mean rated serious helmets, not novelty helmets or beanies) are WAY better than they were 20 years ago. If price is important to you the good news is that you can get an extremely safe helmet for $100. If you like graphics and stuff you can spend more and still be very safe. The snells aren't going to rip your head off... just your wallet a little.

Just one thing I wanted to say

If you aren't getting help at a motorcycle shop, don't buy there. Not only does lack of customer service suck, but the only shops that I've been at which refused to help me didn't seem to know anything or care at all about motorcycles. When I was looking for a helmet, I actually saw a guy toss a helmet to another salesperson who was 5 feet below him (ladder) and 15 feet away to "speed things up".

Makes you wonder what they do when no one is looking...

So basically it's open to interpretation, your wallet, and your personal opinion whether a Snell is worth it or not?

No,

It should be, whatever fits the best. And has either a DOT or SNELL sticker.

Sevulturus wrote:No,

It should be, whatever fits the best. And has either a DOT or SNELL sticker.

or both?

You cannot get a SNELL helmet that isn't DOT.

storysunfolding wrote:Just one thing I wanted to say

If you aren't getting help at a motorcycle shop, don't buy there. Not only does lack of customer service suck, but the only shops that I've been at which refused to help me didn't seem to know anything or care at all about motorcycles. When I was looking for a helmet, I actually saw a guy toss a helmet to another salesperson who was 5 feet below him (ladder) and 15 feet away to "speed things up".

Makes you wonder what they do when no one is looking...

I was at an outdoor motorcycle show some weeks ago and coming past the 'Oxford' stall when I saw two guys trying to manouver a stand full of maybe 20 crash helmets back into the marquee for the night. Not unsurprisingly they got it wrong and the whole lot went crashing down onto the tarmac floor. I stood watching. They just picked them up, checked them for scatches and put them back. They didn't even have the decency to look embarrassed. It probably goes on all the time.

What does it matter if they fell?

It's a god damn helmet. If it can't withstand a five foot drop (or 1-2 foot in the cart example) than I sure don't want it on my head...