Читать книгу Proficient Motorcycling - David L. Hough - Страница 33

The ultimate purpose of a helmet is to prevent brain injuries during an accident. You can crack your leg or your skull and survive, but scrambled brains will bring you to a permanent halt. One really important reason for protecting your brain is that the brain doesn’t heal itself the way other body tissue does. If you bang your head hard enough to black out for a few seconds, you’ve injured your brain. And a concussion can turn into epilepsy a year or two down the road. So if you intend to get back in the saddle after the big crash, consider the importance of keeping brain injuries to a minimum. Even a $50 helmet that’s DOT approved can provide excellent protection because it’s the crushable foam inside that protects the brain, not the outer shell.

You don’t really need a real helmet if you are clever enough and skillful enough to avoid crashes. What you wear is your business. But more than a few riders do crash, even when they didn’t expect to. It’s a bad joke to believe that a thin “party” lid with no impact liner will give you any protection when you go down.

If you find that a full-coverage helmet is claustrophobic or difficult to wear with eyeglasses, consider one of the flip-front styles.

There are lots of statistics on helmet use, and there have been way too many heated discussions about mandatory helmet laws—pro and con. I believe that what you wear while riding is your own business, but let’s be honest about the situation. A fake “party” lid with no internal crushable liner can’t provide any meaningful protection from sharp blows to the head. A DOT-approved helmet will provide reasonable brain protection in the typical street motorcycle crash. A full-coverage helmet can also provide jaw and face protection. According to a German study, the majority of helmet strikes in accidents are to the left and right chin areas. That’s something to think about if you have been wearing a shorty or three-quarter helmet.

I think I understand the risks pretty well. I have one helmet with a cracked shell right at forehead level, a result of a large stone roosted from a vehicle ahead. I’ve also been hit by various potentially injurious or messy objects, including June bugs, bees, small stones, straw, hail, and seagull poop. Personally, I never go motorcycling without a helmet. My favorite style is full coverage with a flip front.