The General Motorbikers Discussion Thread

[KaJuN]

Originally Posted by Blind_Io

Good news, everybody!

Aw I thought I was going to learn something new about the Dacia Sandero.

[Blind_Io]

Originally Posted by Spectre

I would suppose so, most of the Honda body parts are. Now, what he *may* have to get is any stickers, decals, or badges that were on that panel as Honda usually sells those separately.

Thanks for bringing that up, but there are no badges on that panel.

Originally Posted by Jon

Blind! You've reminded me..

Ok, this web page may break a few hearts. Government SHARP have introduced a new 5-star safety rating test for helmets. There are only a few select full-face helmets tested at the moment but this will eventually be every helmet available for sale in the UK.

You may be surprised by some of the results.. For example, The Shoei XR-1000 range (approx £300) got a 3 star rating, where as my Nitro £79.99 got a 4 star rating!..

Link!

Some pretty interesting stuff!

I like the Shoei for more than it's protection (it is a SNELL lid), it's also more aerodynamically stable than my POS HJC so I don't get my melon knocked around all the time when I ride which means less fatigue. It has better ventilation and cooling in hot weather than others I have tried and it fits the shape of my gourd better than some of the cheaper brands.

[Karoug]

Originally Posted by avanti

indeed, if I remember correctly we all ride GSX-Rs too, I think Karoug has a 1000, that means the whole family is represented, I have a 750.

If we only could force someone to buy the 1100 aswell...

[Spectre]

You'd also need to find a Busa rider to get the GSX-R1300 represented. I don't think we have one, do we?

Originally Posted by Blind_Io

Thanks for bringing that up, but there are no badges on that panel.

Yeah... I'm not so lucky. Two decals.

[BerserkerCatSplat]

Originally Posted by Spectre

Next, Snell doesn't "big" itself up. The market itself has pushed Snell forward to its current prominence; it wasn't self-promotion. It's much like Underwriters' Laboratories and household electrical gear; nobody in their right mind buys a product in those arenas that doesn't have the endorsement/certification on it.

In regards to SNELL certification, I found this article rather interesting:

http://www.motorcyclistonline.com/ge...iew/index.html

Be sure to read SNELL's response to the article and Motor Cyclist's response at the bottom.

[Jon]

Originally Posted by Spectre

Posting a video is not incompetent. It's the video contents that are laughable.

From seeing that error-inducing test rig, I certainly can dismiss the tests. Especially considering that the ratings appear to be the inverse of what we in the US have gotten from test results AND from empirical data.

I especially like the high rating of several helmets that couldn't pass either the DOT or Snell tests and therefore are not legal to wear in the US. And the "oh god these are unsafe" rated helmets have quite a few that have been "crash tested" by US riders and found to have superior protection. And the absurdly high rating of the Bell M1, which is known to be defective by most US riders after several incidents where the helmet just *disintegrated* on a light impact, resulting in severe user injury - to the point where Bell is being sued. No US rider in their right mind would buy a Bell motorcycle helmet given a choice.

Ambitious, but rubbish.

How can someone you know who used to work with the British government (regarding video games) POSSIBLY affect any of this??? You're talking out of your ass to put it bluntly. SNELL is a farce.

have a read of this

How is it that the British and European standards are deemed FAR superior by leading experts/scientists to SNELL standards
(if our government is so crap by the way?)

Edit: I see Beserker is a step ahead of me.

[BigDaveDogg]

Originally Posted by Spectre

You'd also need to find a Busa rider to get the GSX-R1300 represented. I don't think we have one, do we?

It's GSX1300R...


My buddy has a 'bus' (as I like to call it), I could get him to join up if need be.

[Spectre]

Originally Posted by Jon

How can someone you know who used to work with the British government (regarding video games) POSSIBLY affect any of this??? You're talking out of your ass to put it bluntly. SNELL is a farce.

have a read of this

How is it that the British and European standards are deemed FAR superior by leading experts/scientists to SNELL standards
(if our government is so crap by the way?)

Edit: I see Beserker is a step ahead of me.

Nobody said anything about the *standards* being bad, I freely admit that the US DOT one is more than a bit of a joke.

However, this SHARP testing seems made of FAIL. For example, per most standards bodies, the carriage is supposed to slide down rods, not cables. I'm also not seeing any method of measuring how much lateral deflection the helmet gets on the way down, which, from the video looks significant.

The reason I mention this is because at work we have a similar rig for testing concrete blocks, panels, and posts. ANSI tells us we have to use rails or rods for consistency and repeatability, and not cables. If we use certain kinds of rails or rods, we must have a lateral deflection measurement system.

As for dealing with the Brit government.... I was using that as a historical background. I *do* deal with some branch or other of the British government as part of my job - at least on a bi-monthly basis. Your government is *completely* screwed up from what I can see. They sent me a form for some certification or other in the UK that had all those buzzwords (well, minus the organic peace crisps) last week. I had to fill it out... despite the fact that this was for the IT department of a company that makes MODULAR CONCRETE FENCES. CONCRETE ISN'T RECYCLEABLE!!!! Yet we had to fill out an enormous pile of forms in quadruplicate certifying that there was no possible way that somehow somewhere we weren't lying about the recycleability of our product and that we weren't discriminating against "Asian" handicapped transsexual lesbians in any department of the company. WTF? Even the US Federal government isn't that stupid!

It's gotten so bad the President/CEO is just about to say the hell with it and ban sales to Britain.

[BerserkerCatSplat]

Originally Posted by Spectre

Nobody said anything about the *standards* being bad, I freely admit that the US DOT one is more than a bit of a joke.

However, this SHARP testing seems made of FAIL. For example, per most standards bodies, the carriage is supposed to slide down rods, not cables. I'm also not seeing any method of measuring how much lateral deflection the helmet gets on the way down, which, from the video looks significant.

Any thoughts on the article's substantiated assertion that SNELL certification can lead to more injuries than non-SNELL helmets due to a horribly flawed testing process and considering 300g cranial forces to be acceptable?

[Jon]

Originally Posted by Spectre

Nobody said anything about the *standards* being bad, I freely admit that the US DOT one is more than a bit of a joke.

However, this SHARP testing seems made of FAIL. For example, per most standards bodies, the carriage is supposed to slide down rods, not cables. I'm also not seeing any method of measuring how much lateral deflection the helmet gets on the way down, which, from the video looks significant.

Slide down rods, not cables.. Right. You'd best go tell them then, they do it for a living whereas you just watch videos and draw all your assumptions from them, but hey, they might appreciate it. After all, they are lunatics.

Originally Posted by Spectre

As for dealing with the Brit government.... I was using that as a historical background. I *do* deal with some branch or other of the British government as part of my job - at least on a bi-monthly basis. Your government is *completely* screwed up from what I can see. They sent me a form for some certification or other in the UK that had all those buzzwords (well, minus the organic peace crisps) last week. I had to fill it out... despite the fact that this was for the IT department of a company that makes MODULAR CONCRETE FENCES. CONCRETE ISN'T RECYCLEABLE!!!! Yet we had to fill out an enormous pile of forms in quadruplicate certifying that there was no possible way that somehow somewhere we weren't lying about the recycleability of our product and that we weren't discriminating against "Asian" handicapped transsexual lesbians in any department of the company. WTF? Even the US Federal government isn't that stupid!

It's gotten so bad the President/CEO is just about to say the hell with it and ban sales to Britain.

What has this got to do with anything?? Do you want me to start bringing up some famous American government decisions or something? I could.. but i'd rather not when we're talking in a MOTORCYCLE DISCUSSION THREAD ABOUT HELMETS. How the hell have you got such a high rep with bollocks like this?

Shenanigans! Damnit i'm calling it!

[Spectre]

Originally Posted by BerserkerCatSplat

Any thoughts on the article's substantiated assertion that SNELL certification can lead to more injuries than non-SNELL helmets due to a horribly flawed testing process and considering 300g cranial forces to be acceptable?

Personally, I think this is much like what happened in the firearms world. There were several competing models, all of which seemed to have a little piece of the puzzle but none of which could account for all the observed effects.

It took two studies, the Marshall and Sanow study and Dr. Fackler's famous terminal ballistics research, to finally establish just HOW a bullet performed and how that related to various testing medium via repeatable mathematical formulae. They had to go back to square one and start over to get a clean result, and I think that's what needs to happen here.

The average threshold of injury needs to be determined in all axes (it was recently determined that that lateral movement of the skull will cause more brain injury faster than vertical or longitudinal and may have been what killed Dale Earnhardt, for example), through empirical studies and scientific testing of corpses. An unbiased standard must also be established, again starting from scratch, for penetration and head movement in event of a crash. NONE of the standards I've seen, even the BSI, ECE, or, yes, Snell, really is unbiased, and none of them seem to have started from a clean sheet and started with real experimentation on human anatomy analogs. That's what needs to happen, really.

Originally Posted by Jon

Slide down rods, not cables.. Right. You'd best go tell them then, they do it for a living whereas you just watch videos and draw all your assumptions from them, but hey, they might appreciate it. After all, they are lunatics

Shenanigans! Damnit i'm calling it!

You can call shenanigans all you want. You missed my edit - we have a similar testing rig at work, which I forgot to mention earlier. Similar rig, similar logic.

If I remember, I'll get a pic of it the next time I'm out at the factory lab. Hm. Come to think of it, I think I'll go down there next week and say hi to the cute new lab tech.

As for my high rep - it's usually because I'm *right*.

Speaking of being right...

Originally Posted by BigDaveDogg

It's GSX1300R...


My buddy has a 'bus' (as I like to call it), I could get him to join up if need be.

I type corrected. You should invite him, though - the more the merrier, and you Suzie owners are outnumbered by Honda riders here.

[Karoug]

^And it's 1340 now..

[BerserkerCatSplat]

Originally Posted by Spectre

The average threshold of injury needs to be determined in all axes (it was recently determined that that lateral movement of the skull will cause more brain injury faster than vertical or longitudinal and may have been what killed Dale Earnhardt, for example), through empirical studies and scientific testing of corpses. An unbiased standard must also be established, again starting from scratch, for penetration and head movement in event of a crash. NONE of the standards I've seen, even the BSI, ECE, or, yes, Snell, really is unbiased, and none of them seem to have started from a clean sheet and started with real experimentation on human anatomy analogs. That's what needs to happen, really.

The problem with your idea is that there's no real way to test a human analog. Brain tissue damage is normally caused from swelling, not impact, and the only way to determine swelling from different impacts is to use a live brain - something that would certainly never be done.

Dale Earnhardt was killed by a basilar skull fracture, something that a helmet cannot possibly prevent. Unless you're riding with a HANS device, no safety gear is going to protect you from that.

But, anyway, you still haven't really answered the question - why would you put your safety in the hands of SNELL, when they allow helmets to transmit much more G to your cranium than other tests for the sake of complying with a test that has little or no bearing on the vast, vast majority of accidents? In simpler terms, why would you compromise your own safety in a huge majority of accidents while protecting yourself from those least likely to happen?

[klutch]

Bleh...in a thread devoted to the quickest machines available to the public, safety certification has become the primary topic of discussion. The thread has failed.

[Redliner]

Originally Posted by BerserkerCatSplat

Dale Earnhardt was killed by a basilar skull fracture, something that a helmet cannot possibly prevent. Unless you're riding with a HANS device, no safety gear is going to protect you from that.

Somebody correct me if I'm wrong, but I think you aren't going to suffer a basilar skull fracture crashing a bike because you are not attached to the bike like drivers are attached to the seat, so there isn't enought tension in the spine to cause it.

[KaJuN]

You probably wouldn't suffer one just from coming off the bike but when you hit the tree or the car I could see it happening pretty easily.

[Spectre]

Originally Posted by BerserkerCatSplat

The problem with your idea is that there's no real way to test a human analog. Brain tissue damage is normally caused from swelling, not impact, and the only way to determine swelling from different impacts is to use a live brain - something that would certainly never be done.

Actually, it was done - by both the US and Russian militaries and space programs with various monkeys. Heck, the data is probably even still available somewhere in the Library of Congress or via a FOIA request.

Dale Earnhardt was killed by a basilar skull fracture, something that a helmet cannot possibly prevent. Unless you're riding with a HANS device, no safety gear is going to protect you from that.

I perhaps should have said "contributed to it", then. If I recall the post mortem correctly, he was unconscious due to the lateral Gs his head sustained before the fracture killed him.

Also, there are now bike helmets with various cervical collar attachments that serve much the same purpose as a HANS device.

But, anyway, you still haven't really answered the question - why would you put your safety in the hands of SNELL, when they allow helmets to transmit much more G to your cranium than other tests for the sake of complying with a test that has little or no bearing on the vast, vast majority of accidents? In simpler terms, why would you compromise your own safety in a huge majority of accidents while protecting yourself from those least likely to happen?

Who said I relied entirely on Snell? I just said that I trusted Snell more than this SHARP crap.

SHARP aside, I suspect that the correct answer until someone comes up with a realistic system based on real data is the same one I used to purchase my new HJC CS-12 - get a helmet that fits with the most certs you can find. In my case - Snell M2000, US DOT, ECE-R 22.05, ACS Gold.

Also, don't think that I think Snell is the be-all, end-all of testing, either. I have a severe problem with their excuses to NOT test any flip-front helmet, for example. I just pointed out that I'd trust Snell more than I trusted US DOT or SHARP. (Go ahead, look back through my posts.)

Why do I distrust DOT? Because stupid "beanie" type half-helmets like this pass DOT:

http://helmetsplace.com/pro1175710.html

Another:


Yeah... that would be less protection than a bloody polo helmet, and we all know how well *those* work.


Also... has anyone in here besides Blind_Io and myself actually *tested* their helmets? You know, by actually crashing in them?

[Spectre]

Originally Posted by Redliner

Somebody correct me if I'm wrong, but I think you aren't going to suffer a basilar skull fracture crashing a bike because you are not attached to the bike like drivers are attached to the seat, so there isn't enought tension in the spine to cause it.

Originally Posted by KaJuN

You probably wouldn't suffer one just from coming off the bike but when you hit the tree or the car I could see it happening pretty easily.

Yup. It's not so much when you come off the bike as when your flight comes to an end courtesy of the solid object you just hit.

Like this one:

[BigDaveDogg]

Originally Posted by Spectre

I type corrected. You should invite him, though - the more the merrier, and you Suzie owners are outnumbered by Honda riders here.

The whole world is infested with you guys

[British_Rover]

Originally Posted by BerserkerCatSplat

The problem with your idea is that there's no real way to test a human analog. Brain tissue damage is normally caused from swelling, not impact, and the only way to determine swelling from different impacts is to use a live brain - something that would certainly never be done.

Ah but you forget Specter lives in Texas. There is probably some ambitions Texas legislature who also rides already proposing a way to make the last moments of death row inmates useful by using them in just such a test.

Disclaimer I am from Texas, Midland to be precise same place our illustrious president claims to be even though he is really a Yankee from New Haven, CT, so I can make that joke.