Why does SHARP carry out impact tests at specific points on a helmet?
The kind of brain injury that can happen in a crash depends on what part of your head is bashed inside the helmet. To ensure that we accurately assess helmet performance, it is important that our impact conditions are representative of real-world crashes. The in-depth investigations into crashes carried out by COST 327 confirmed a direct correlation between the location of damage to a helmet and head injury. It considered the UN-ECE Regulation impact locations to be appropriate and SHARP therefore uses the same impact points – to the front, rear, crown, left and right sides.
In addition to this however, for every helmet model that is rated, a sample is dismantled to check whether there is any localised reinforcement that could lead to an inappropriately high rating. If this is considered likely, SHARP retains the right to test at any other point on the helmet (within the extent of protection specified in Annex 4 to UN-ECE Regulation 22.05).
