man i freakin' love the englishforum. i was searching for exactly this sort of information before posting a new thread.
so, when looking to buy helmets, it needs to say "ECE approved" or something along those lines?
specifically, im looking at stuff like this on ebay.de, which (understandably enough) doesnt have swiss saftey approval standards on it.
http://www.ebay.de/itm/Berliner-Roll...item905bc0cbc9
can anyone help me out and let me know if this would be legal here, or where in ZRH i could get something like this?
Perhaps you will find an other fashionable helmet in this shop .
Secondly, surely the point of a helmet is to protect and minimize head injury, not whether you can get away with sub-standard headgear...
1. Make sure it is a reputable brand.
2. Make sure it is certified (if possible).
3. Make sure it FITS your head (site link shows how to measure)
4. Make sure you buy a NEW one
5. Make sure you fasten strap properly
6. Make sure you have a motorcycle and can ride legally before doing step 1...
also take the results from SHARP with a lot of salt... they had some tests that showed a £50 plastic 2 piece helmet had far better crash protection than a carbon or composite helmet along with some other oddities.
That means it is illegal to use it on a public road.
which begs the question... WTF are those helmets for?
"oh hey heres a sweet looking helmet, but if you buy it and get pulled over youll get a huge fine, plus your brains will turn to Griesscreme if you get into an accident. enjoy."
Furthermore, until December 32, 2005 it could have been any helmet, see here .
In the American test does a small but heavy steel ball get dropped on the helmet from a defined height, which has to withstand the impact. In reality do riders typically hit a flat and rough surface at a high speed... which is a very different sort of impact.
Simple result: I happen to have a BMW helmet, arguably one of the safest models on the planet according to European standards. While BMW does sell it's bikes and other gear in the US, do they not sell helmets there: The same helmet that gets a five star rating in Europe does simply fail the tests.
I read some article in a bike magazine some years back where BMW pretty openly said that they are not interested to make worse helmets in order to pass the US legislation but only sell things they really believe in... one of the reasons why I bought their product actually. (Similar is apparently true for some Schuberth models.)