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Dot Approved Motorcycle Helmet
DOT Approved Motorcycle Helmet – Better Than Snell?
All legal Motorcycle helmets carry the DOT approved motorcycle
helmet stickers. The DOT approved motorcycle
helmet sticker must be attached to all motorcycle
helmets sold in the US. But you will also find the Snell
Approval sticker, which is not required to be on all
motorcycle helmets.
But what do these approvals mean to you, the buyer of a
motorcycle helmet, and how is a motorcycle helmet tested
to make sure the rider’s head is safe inside it?
DOT stands for the US Department of Transport
certification. To be able to put the DOT Approved
motorcycle helmet sticker on a motorcycle helmet, the
manufacturer must prove that the helmet meets the
Federal Motor Vehicle Safety Standard for motorcycle
helmets or FMVSS 218. This standard details all the
safety requirements a motorcycle helmet must meet before
being certified. No motorcycle helmet can be sold in the
US that does not meet this standard.
The DOT Approved Motor Cycle Helmet standard was first
applied in 1974 and had been twice updated, in 1980 and
1988. A further update is planned in the near future.
For DOT certification, manufacturers are required to
test the motorcycle helmets themselves and report the
results to the Department of Transport. If the helmets
meet specifications, a DOT Approved Motorcycle Helmet
sticker is issued.
But it is not entirely up to the manufacturer. Every
year, the Department of Transport conducts random tests
on the motorcycle helmets that carry its stickers,
ensuring that the standards have been met as reported by
the manufacturer. The results of these random tests are
reported on the US Department of Transport website.
The Snell Memorial Foundation, a private, not for profit
organization, conducts the Snell tests. The Snell
certification is conducted on the manufacturer’s helmet
by the Smell organization with its own testing
equipment. The certification is called M2000, and
motorcycle helmets sold in the US are not required to
carry this sticker.
The standard test for a motorcycle helmet is to set the
helmet on a headform and drop it onto a steel anvil. The
test must be repeated so that the motorcycle helmet is
impacted in at least four places.
The impact is measured through an accelerometer which is
placed inside the headform. The accelerometer records
the number of Gs absorbed by the headform.
As this corresponds to the impact that will be felt by a
human head inside the motorcycle, the lower the number
of Gs recorded, the better.
The intention with all motorcycle helmet testing is to
see how well the motorcycle protects the rider’s head.
Since it has been shown that 95 per cent of all
motorcycle accidents occur at speeds well below those
used in testing, you can be certain that motorcycle
helmets with DOT Approved Motorcycle Helmet stickers and
Snell Approved motorcycle helmet stickers have passed
rigorous tests and will give excellent protection.
About the Author
Gail Kavanagh is a freelance writer living in
Queensland, Australia. A former newspaper journalist,
Gail has written for anthologies and for print and
online publications, as well as a number of content
sites. She writes an astrology column for Coffee Cramp
Magazine, is the editor of The Kitchen Herbal at
www.openhearth.com and the author of several books at
www.lulu.com/kavanaghsattic including The Working
Writer's Market Guide. Gail's website is
http://www.valeofavondale.com. She is a regular contributor to
http://My-Motorcycle-Helmet.com
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