Originally Posted by
Alan K
From everything I have read over many years, the difference between a $280 helmet and $28 helmet is definitely not proportionate to their priceifference. When you buy a fancy helmet, you are paying for their more fashionable design, better air flow scheme so your head stays less hot in summer, and mostly for all the money they spend in advertising and sponsoring.
We started buying bicycle helmets for our children from Chikdren’s Hospital’s gift shop when we learned that their helmets were thoroughly tested and they were as safe as the best ones. Hospital sold these helmets without any profit as a community service. Some years later they started selling helmets for adults. Majority of our helmets were and still are bought from them. A couple of them got knocked in accidents and we replaced them promptly with new.
Winters are cold here and a full size helmet used for skiing and snowboarding suits us quite well. I think they much safer than a summer version - very sturdy shell and thicker layer of closed polystyrene foam. Too bad children’s hospital doesn’t sell them. 😉
I can’t believe that in some states driving a motor cycles without wearing a helmet isn’t against the law - something to do with their objections about interfering with their freedom!
It's very true that the safety of a helmet is not proportional to its cost. At the momement, the helmets rated safest by the Virginia Tech testing lab also happen to be on the expensive side,
https://www.helmet.beam.vt.edu/bicyc...-ratings.html#!
but that is not the same as saying that safety and cost correlate. In fact, there are some rather inexpensive helmets in their rankings that rate quite well.
For example a few years ago I wanted a second helmet for my non-road use (because I didn't want to go for a road ride and then 30 minutes later, go out for errands with a helmet still sopped in sweat) and I bought a $50 Specialized helmet that was at the time 3rd or 4th in the Virginia Tech rankings.
OTOH, some recent technologies (e.g., MIPS, Wavecell) have also added a premium to the helmets that have them, and so there is a bit more of a relationship between safety and cost.