Dec 6, 2006

Are you wearing that helmet correctly?

I noticed a colleague wearing this lid yesterday and noticed that it fit him rather well. I also noticed that he wasn't wearing it right! So I created these two, rather stupid looking, I'll admit, erm, illustrations to show the right way to wear a helmet. Since a loose fitting helmet is automatically 'wrong' we'll assume you already have a just-short-of-a-headache-tight helmet. The correct way is to center the eyes in the center of the faceshield. And not so that your eyes are right at the top. If your helmet has a nose-piece/breath-guard, your nose should be under it.

Why is this crucial? Get a friend to wear his/her helmet and roll it forward and down until the eyes are at the top of the faceshield. Now ask them to turn around. You will notice that a significant part of the back of your head (I think it's called the Medulla Oblongata) is fully exposed. Need I say more?

3 comments:

Anonymous said...

"So I created these two, rather stupid looking, I'll admit, erm, illustrations to show the right way to wear a helmet."

Hey so where are the umm ... illustrations

Unknown said...

thanks for the info, i just have a problem that if i keep my lid balanced at half visor eye level, my specs start looking skywards !!!

Anonymous said...

Well what I have noticed is, most cheaper (or less premium) helmets (that often cost below a grand) are relatively short at the back. Hence they leave a lot of exposed area on the upper neck.

Try to cover the back in any of those and your chin protrudes out from the front.

Now which is more dangerous? Considering most impacts are frontal?

The ultimate solution would be to get a "better" helmet!