If you’re a regular rider, whether or not you’ve had the misfortune of coming off, you (hopefully!) understand the need for quality protection. What if what you buy is not what it claims to be though? Chances are that if your purchase seems too good to be true, it probably is. If you were to go onto online auction sites, social media marketplaces, or other common, less regulated and reputable places on the internet, you can easily find helmets at prices that seem too good to be true.
What’s the catch? Well, in essence, they aren’t real helmets. First and foremost, they look like a pretty good approximation of the real thing, and they will fit on your head, so they could make a good hat. The downside? You really wouldn’t want to crash in one of these things.
Genuine helmets have had thousands, if not millions, of pounds spent on development to ensure they do their utmost to stop your head decelerating too quickly on coming into contact with something solid and immoveable. Real helmets do this with specially designed polycarbonate, carbon fibre or fibre-based shells, followed by an impact liner (similar to polystyrene) and a soft inner liner to keep your head comfortable. The idea of the outer shell is to keep things in one piece to allow the impact liner to do its job of increasing the impact time for your head. The less force per second, the better, as your head can only take so much.
Fake helmets on the other hand aren’t designed this way, a cheap plastic shell with whatever filler material is cheapest and a low quality soft inside are the only ingredients required in a typical fake helmet. Sure, it makes production costs super-low, but the actual crash protection is very nearly as bad as wearing no helmet at all! Plastic shells split on impacts of even 30mph or below, and the filler has zero effect on deceleration forces. Officials testing these helmets have even said that the lack of effect on deceleration can damage their machines as the resistance is that weak.
What do you do to prevent being conned then? The easiest way to do this is to go to reputable dealer, such as Bike Stop. Businesses, good ones especially, work on reputation. Without a solid reputation, no seller will stay in business, and counterfeit goods are a great way of having no customers come back!
Secondly, the point made earlier about it seeming too good to be true. In life unfortunately miracles are very few and far between. Helmets follow this rule very closely, with major price cuts often only appearing when the helmet is near the end of its useful life. If you see a £400 helmet going for £30 on a site you don’t know, and with no obvious reason for it being so cheap, walk away.
Third, check for certification. All helmets sold in the UK have to conform to certain standards, and an easy one to check is by finding an E mark and its serial number on the chinstrap. If this isn’t here then it’s not legit.
Finally, if you’re still not convinced, contact the manufacturer or importer of the real thing. They’ll soon tell you if it’s real or not, and they’ll take it seriously as fake goods risk damaging their reputations as safety kit manufacturers, even if their own goods aren’t to blame.
If you’re going to take anything away from this; quite simply, use your head. Helmets are something you should never compromise on as they protect one of the most vulnerable and important parts of your body. They don’t just protect from impact but from sliding as well, and a fake helmet, while it may look pretty good, will be worse than useless if the worst happens. You’ve no way of knowing when or if that may happen, so take control of one of the few parts you can and protect yourself in genuine gear that might one day be the difference between walking from an off, to never walking again.
If you're looking to save cash and still protect your bonce, do not despair! There are several (real) helmets out there that will do a great job of protection without requiring a mortgage to buy. Check out our blog on the subject for some inspiration here.
Bike Stop naturally stocks motorcycle helmets from a wide range of some of the best manufacturers out there, check out our website or visit the shop in Stevenage to see what's on offer.
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