Hard facts for easy riders

A couple of home truths about motorcycles: wearing the right helmet in a crash is good; avoiding the crash altogether is better.

With that in mind, we note a couple of safety developments in the past few weeks. The first is a proposed new rule from the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration that would strengthen the tests that motorcycle helmets must undergo to be certified by the Department of Transportation and that would require manufacturers to put larger, tamper-proof certification stickers on their helmets.

Why should you care about the sticker? Because legitimate stickers can be stripped off qualifying helmets and applied to novelty helmets, and fake stickers made or sold for the same reason. And why should you care about the strength of the helmet? Because deaths from motorcycle crashes have more than doubled in the past 10 years—to almost 5,000 annually—and head injuries were the leading cause of those deaths.

Novelty helmets may look cool, but they don’t adequately protect a rider’s head as it smashes onto the pavement or a guardrail or any other lethal surface. Makers of novelty helmets often include a disclaimer that they’re not intended for protecting wearers from injury. So true—recent tests show that novelty helmets fail every performance requirement for motorcycle helmets.

It makes sense to wear the best helmet possible, even if the law in your state doesn’t require one.

The second development came this week  when the Insurance Institute for Highway Safety released tandem studies (here and here) showing that both the frequency of accidents and the rate of fatal crashes drop among motorcycles with antilock brakes. That may seem like a given, but it is, in fact, a departure from real-world experience with autos. (Years of Consumer Reports’ tests of antilock brakes have found them to be very effective in preventing the brakes from locking up, and allowing the driver to keep control of the car in a panic stop. Unfortunately, many drivers don’t use ABS correctly, and their potential hasn’t translated to effectiveness on the road.)

Because of the inherent instability of a motorcycle, locking a front or back wheel can cause the bike to fall over or throw the rider. ABS allows a rider to apply maximum braking force without locking a wheel.

Still, antilock brakes on motorcycles are relatively new, and almost always available only as optional equipment on larger bikes. Concerned riders have to make an effort to find a bike with these brakes and resign themselves to paying extra for them. 

Comments

[82drops]

Why people wouldn't want to wear the best helmet possible/available, regardless of the law, is beyond me.

Antilock brakes should come as standard on all motorcycles - consumers should not have to pay more for it.

[Keith Schiffner]

So WHEN exactly is CR going to start doing informed, intelligent testing of motorcycles? Not to mention proper riding gear for riders? ABS has been available on motorcycles for over 20 years...something the writer seems unaware of. Also if ABS is so great why does it always leave a car, truck or motorcycle stopping further than without it? I ask because I've seen this on many different surfaces including diesel soaked concrete.

Impertinent? Yep...I don't ask easy questions ever.

[Mark]

Motorcycle ABS is a great idea, at least worth evaluating. Glad to see it getting some attention here. As noted, riding on two wheels instead of four, motorcycles act entirely different during a turn. I would love to see some testing done. Safely turning on a motorcycle is a major issue. Thanks.