If you want to know how safe a motorcycle helmet is it?s quite easy to look up on the SHARP (Safety Helmets Assessment and Rating Program) website. They?ve got over 500 helmets listed on there, all of which have been put through a rigorous testing program and given a star rating from one to five. That?s great, but how can you really test the safety of a helmet, and how do they come up with their numbers" Well this is how they do it?

First of all, a bit of background on SHARP. It?s a UK government thing, that the Department of Transport initiated back in 2007. They?d done a load of research (called COST 327, if you?re interested) that showed, amongst other things, that the temple is massively vulnerable to injury, and that if helmets were 30% better at absorbing energy, we?d end up with 50% fewer critical injuries from bike crashes. The problem with that, is as a customer walking into a shop to buy a helmet, you?ve no real idea of the helmets absorption capabilities; and you can?t really take the salesman?s word for it when it?s something as important as that.
So they decided to do something about it, and develop some tests to see which motorcycle helmets are the safest, so we as the consumer, are better informed when we?re spending our hard-earned on a new lid. Great.

How do they test them"

That’s one way to test a helmet, cheers Fagan.

Every model of helmet undergoes 32 separate tests. That?s 30 ?linear? tests and two ?oblique? tests; lin...