Laws and Standards
Motorcycle helmets greatly reduce injuries and fatalities in motorcycle accidents, thus many countries have laws requiring acceptable helmets to be worn by motorcycle riders. These laws vary considerably, often exempting mopeds and other small-displacement bikes. In some countries, most notably the USA and India, there is some opposition to compulsory helmet use (see Helmet Law Defense League); not all USA states have a compulsory helmet law.
Worldwide, many countries have defined their own sets of standards that are used to judge the effectiveness of a motorcycle helmet in an accident, and define the minimal acceptable standard thereof. Among them are:
- ACU (Auto-Cycle Union) Gold or Silver badge
- AS/NZS 1698:2006 (Australia and New Zealand)
- BSI (British Standards Institute) 6658
- CSA CAN3-D230-M85 (Canada. they no longer certify motorcycle helmets)
- DOT FMVSS 218 (USA)
- GOST R 41.22-2001 (ГОСТ Р 41.22-2001) (Russia) (based on ECE 22.05)
- NBR 7471 (Brazil)
- IS 4151 (India)
- JIS T 8133:2000 (Japan)
- Snell M 2005 "2005 Helmet Standard For Use in Motorcycling"
- SNI (Indonesia)
- SHARP (UK) - Star Rating
- CRASH (Australia) - Star Rating
- ECE Regulation 22 (Europe) (2001)
- TCVN 5756:2001 (test and certify by QUATEST 3) (Vietnam)
The Snell Memorial Foundation has developed stricter requirements and testing procedures for motorcycle helmets with racing in mind, as well as helmets for other activities (e.g. drag racing, bicycling, horseback riding), and many riders in North America consider Snell certification a benefit when considering buying a helmet while others note that its standards allow for more force (g's) to be transferred to a rider's head than the U.S. Department of Transportation (DOT) standard. However, the DOT standard does not test the chin bar of helmets with them, while the Snell (and ECE) standards do.
In the United Kingdom, many riders choose helmets bearing an Auto-Cycle Union (ACU) Gold sticker as it defines a stricter standard than the legal minimum ECE 22.05 specification. Helmets with an ACU Gold sticker are the only ones allowed to be worn in competition, or at track days.
Read more about this topic: Motorcycle Helmet
Famous quotes containing the words laws and, laws and/or standards:
“So far as laws and institutions avail, men should have equality of opportunity for happiness; that is, of education, wealth, power. These make happiness secure. An equal diffusion of happiness so far as laws and institutions avail.”
—Rutherford Birchard Hayes (1822–1893)
“Private property is held sacred in all good governments, and particularly in our own. Yet shall the fear of invading it prevent a general from marching his army over a cornfield or burning a house which protects the enemy? A thousand other instances might be cited to show that laws must sometimes be silent when necessity speaks.”
—Andrew Jackson (1767–1845)
“If one doesn’t know one’s own country, one doesn’t have standards for foreign countries.”
—Johann Wolfgang Von Goethe (1749–1832)