Things to Think About Before Buying a Motorcycle Helmet

These days helmets are an important investment for any rider/driver who needs head protection. Whether you're on a motorcycle, quad, snowmobile or in a car, there's much to be considered.

Obviously, safety is the main reason you need a motorcycle helmet. However, many other factors enter into the buying decision. How the helmet fits is important for both comfort and functionality. Style, color and "cool factor" are also considerations which often determine what we trust our brains to. Don't forget that it's your brain you're trying to protect.

Cost is another consideration. It can be, and often is, the determining factor in the helmet buying decision. There are snell and/or DOT rated motorcycle helmets on the market that sell from well over $500.00 to around $80.00. So if you're on a tight budget these days, don't feel like you have to break the bank on a new helmet.

Helmets are usually constructed of fiberglass, carbon fiber, kevlar or plastic shells with various densities of foam liner inside the shell. It's the combination of the characteristics of these two materials which determines how much force gets transmitted from an impact on the shell, through the liner, to your brain.

Some of us believe the stiffer the shell and liner are, the more your brain is protected. This is both true and false. If the blow to the helmet is direct and hard enough to break a less rigid shell, then may be true. However, in what I'll call a medium hard impact, that same helmet is absorbing less of the impact and your brain is taking more of it. In this case a less stiff shell/liner combination may be better for you by absorbing more impact . This is likely the case in the instance of a glancing blow. By glancing blow, I mean one that does not bring your head to a complete stop when the blow occurs. In my experience, the vast majority of non-car crashes would fall into this category.

The two most likely exceptions would be if you fell off a stopped motorcycle (snowmobile or quad) and smacked your head directly into the ground, or; if you fell off at speed and slid directly into something which could stop you instantly. Falling off while stopped would not be a hard impact and, therefore, would not require helmet designed for hard, direct impacts. In fact, a bit of give in the shell and a softer liner absorbs more of the impact leaving less for your brain to take.

In a high speed, direct impact situation you need to consider how much protection something hard wrapped around your head it going to provide. Not to mention the fact that if you drive into the side of your neighborhood Wal-Mart at 90 mph, a stiff helmet won't keep you out of a casket.

Over to the right of this page, you'll find a link to an article from motorcyclistonline.com which details results of tests on various helmets under various impact forces and directions. It's a little bit long but gives good (sometimes surprising) insight into what type of helmet might best suit your riding needs.

To sum things up, when deciding which helmet to purchase it's important to take a look at what you ride or drive and the conditions in which you operate. What type of crash do you feel is most likely for you? At what speed? When it happens, what are the chances of actually sliding directly into something that's not going to give?

Be honest when you answer these questions. Some of us like to think we are so fast that we need the stiffest protection possible. My personal opinion is that's rarely the case. Even if you are the fastest guy on the planet, how often are you going to hit something head-on at high speeds? Unless you're doing something dramatic in a congested area, it's not likely.

Just for the record, I'm not trying to convince anyone to run out and buy a softer helmet. I just want people who need head protection to think about what's actually best for them. Remember, you only get one brain. Besides, the best helmet for you will look just as cool as one that's too hard. Or too soft, for that matter. Decide wisely.