Are you ready to buy a new helmet?
This is what you need to know-
Last year the Western Australian Government along with other State Governments changed the regulations governing the use and sale of motorcycle helmets in Australia to include European certified motorcycle helmets ECE 22.05 as well as the Australian certified motorcycle helmets AS 1698.
This is great I hear you say, but that does not help me in choosing the best and safest helmet for me. Yes but good news is that most of the helmets certified to these two standards have been independently tested and you can get the result of these tests in a simple star rated form by checking out a couple of websites.
For the Australian certified motorcycle helmets go to www.crash.org.au
Both of these sites will give you the safety rating for different types of motorcycle helmet, full face, open face, and flip face etc.
It is strongly recommended that you do not buy a helmet through any on line store, for a couple of reasons, firstly you should never buy a motorcycle helmet that you have not had on your head to ensure the correct fit, secondly there are some dodgy web site out there that may not be selling a compliant helmet and we have already had one fatality from a helmet being sold as compliant on the internet failing and causing the death of a rider.
Also never buy a second hand helmet as you never really know how it has been treated, it may have been dropped and have a undetectable fracture or flaw that can’t be seen by the naked eye but will fail when you need the maximum protection in a crash.
I do hope this helps and gives you some guidance in choosing your next helmet.
Dave Wright Motorcycle Consulting
