Protective clothing research

[GrayWolf]

I guess that one 'fact' of life is cheap gear is cheap protection.. unless you are a fashion victim, for the price.
it would be nice to see a good standard for testing that was aimed at the layman rather than research jargon and terminology... for the average person joules energy for impact means nothing in 'real terms'.
What I would like to also know is why the 25% of quoted gear did fail... there are so many variables, speed, rider weight, construction on the road surface, weather conditions etc, etc... all of these can have a major bearing on how much proterction will be 'on offer'..
For example, NZ roads have some of the most abrasive surfaces in the world... So abrasion resistance would be a very high requirement on gear in this country. You may have gear with a higher impact resistance, but if it performs only average on abrasion?
With that sort of information I can then make an informed and balanced choice as to what levels of various 'protections' I am buying.

[Teal]

Hi Liz, and welcome.

as for your question... isn't it the same thing done with ECE regulations?
if something is 13595 compliant, hopefully at level 2, or even better Cambridge Standard compliant at level 2 or 3... is well enough...
ECE and CS levels are nothing more than a "performance rating", as you would offer.

the problem is that 90% of bike gear is sold as protective but it is not ECE compliant, so it is not protective.


what would your idea add to this? can you explain it better? i can't understand...

It is true that if gear is tested as compliant to the EU standards at Level 1 or 2 then it should perform well in a crash. The problem is that the European standards are not mandatory. Manufacturers only have to comply if they sell their gear in Europe as being protective from injury. If they don't mention safety or injury prevention in their marketing, they dont have to comply. Also those standards do not apply to gear sold anywhere else including the US, Australia or Japan.

As a result very little clothing sold anywhere in the world is marked as having been tested. For example, to my knowledge there are about 2 models of gloves available anywhere in the world that are labelled as having been tested against the European standard for gloves EN 13594:2002 (one by Jofama in Sweden and one by Aldi - recently on sale in Australia !!!).

We are investigating setting up a program which would use the tests specified under the EU standards and publish their results. We are looking at various options for conducting and funding it - possibly like the NCAP - the New Car Assessment Program in which cars are given star ratings on the basis of crash testing. In Australia it is funded by the auto clubs such as the NRMA and RACV. In UK, similar testing is done by Ride motorcycle magazine.

[Teal]

I guess that one 'fact' of life is cheap gear is cheap protection.. unless you are a fashion victim, for the price.
it would be nice to see a good standard for testing that was aimed at the layman rather than research jargon and terminology... for the average person joules energy for impact means nothing in 'real terms'.
What I would like to also know is why the 25% of quoted gear did fail... there are so many variables, speed, rider weight, construction on the road surface, weather conditions etc, etc... all of these can have a major bearing on how much proterction will be 'on offer'..
For example, NZ roads have some of the most abrasive surfaces in the world... So abrasion resistance would be a very high requirement on gear in this country. You may have gear with a higher impact resistance, but if it performs only average on abrasion?
With that sort of information I can then make an informed and balanced choice as to what levels of various 'protections' I am buying.

Thank you - these are good points. The criteria for 'failure' that we used was whether the protective layer was holed during the crash. This means that with kevlar lined jeans, if the denim was holed but not the kevlar, then that was not counted as a failure. It had to be the protective layer that failed.

To pass Level 1 on the EU standards, the high risk areas of a jacket or pants has to give up to 4 seconds abrasion resistance at 'urban speeds' so about 50 km/h. That is the impact/slide speed NOT the travelling speed before the crash. Most riders will have lost a lot of speed by the time their body hits the road. In large international indepth motorcycle crash studies about 70% of crash impacts are less than 50 km/h. In our study, the estimated impact speed of 57% of the riders was less than 40 km/h, 18% between 40-60km/h, only 17% over 60km/h and 8% unknown.

Riders were not necessarily injured as a result of the holes - so yes possibly a sacrificial layer. But the issue is how can a rider know what speed their gear is calibrated to? Riders at the moment cannot know, and we are not sure that the manufacturers know either!

The other point in your question about cheaper being less protective is good marketing but is not born out by the evidence. The UK motorcycle magazine Ride conducts consumer tests using the EU standards and publishes their results.

Go to the http://www.motorcyclenews.com/Ride/ and check out their results for well know brands sold in the UK. Some of the best known and expensive brands do very poorly on the EU tests, where as some relatively cheap brands do very well.

I did not know about NZ roads being more abrasive than other roads, but that is important to know and we will follow it up.

Thanks Liz

[Teal]

a standardised test for abrasion, impact protection, and seam strength.
abrasion resistance varies according to weight of the rider, speed and surface.
Impact protection has similar requirements.
Strength of seams varies hugely, I repair gear and see a lot of sub standard work, frayed seam allowances, poor choice of stitch length and cheap thread.

Thank you. I had not thought of speaking to people who repair kit, that makes a lot of sense. Liz

[Teal]

Id be all for a rating system, but as with any 'independent testing' one does wonder where the funding comes from for the 'independent tester' and what political motivations they might have.I tend to buy based on two things 1) recommendations from others, followed by 2) having the stuff in hand, and going over ot to see if it meets my own standards.
for what reason/through which organisation are you doing such tests?

As for weather, well most gear has either e thermal liner, vents/zips, or both, and for me thats usually enough

My original research - The Gear Study - was funded by Swann Insurance, who insure motorcycles in Australia. You can get a copy of the full research paper from our website. http://www.georgeinstitute.org.au/ab...r-just-weather

While I agree that word of mouth and detailed personal inspection of gear before you buy are essential. You cannot tell the strength of construction nor the abrasion or tear strength of materials by looking at them. The ultimate test is in a crash or in a laboratory, and I know where I would prefer my gear to be tested.

The current project, looking at ways of providing riders with reliable information about the quality of gear they buy is being funded by the ACC in New Zealand and the accident compensation commissions in each State in Australian. You can find out more on this website http://www.maa.nsw.gov.au/default.aspx?MenuID=159

The sort of model we are looking at are those run by consumer associations like Ride magazine in UK, NCAP, the new car assessment program or Choice run by the Australian Consumer Association.

[Teal]

As already mentioned, while the article was of interest the findings seem to be just common sense.



In terms of a rating system what are you proposing as the Europeans already have established standards for motorcycle protective gear as outlined here: http://www.satrappeguide.com/motorcycle_ppe.php

Most of the big brand names have there gear labelled accordingly and my buying decisions are based upon this.

.

Yes I agree the European Standards are a great resource and the information on the SATRA website is correct but unfortunately it is not true that most of the big brand names have their gear labelled accordingly.

In fact very few of the European manufacturers have even one line that is labelled as having been certified to the European Standards for motorcycle clothing.

Most do include CE marked impact protectors - EN 1621-1, but that only covers the impact protectors, not the garment they are fitted into.

There are very few pants or jackets are labelled with EN 13595. There are more motorcycle boots around that are marked EN 13634. I only know of 2 models of motorcycle gloves that are marked EN 13594.

I am not just talking about what is available here, I mean world wide! I work with one of the people who wrote the European Standards for motorcycle clothing and we do try to keep track on what is happening.

[Teal]

You mention that a large percentage of clothing "failed", but you don't describe that "failure" means in that respect.

To me as a rider, a piece of clothing would fail if I got injured. If I did not get injured, but the clothing did, then the clothing has not necessarily failed in it's task to protect me, it has succeeded in sacrificing itself for my benefit.

In our study riders were not necessarily injured as a result of the holes - so yes possibly a sacrificial layer.
The criteria for 'failure' that we used was whether the protective layer was holed during the crash. This means that with kevlar lined jeans, if the denim was holed but not the kevlar, then that was not counted as a failure. It had to be the protective layer that failed.


But the issue is how can a rider know what speed their gear is calibrated to? Did you chose gear that would work to a certain speed? I dont think that does come into a riders decision at the moment. Tests done in UK show little relationship between cost and performance in crashes.

[Quasievil]

Hi Teal. I like the idea of this as it will eliminate poorly made gear from the market, my concern however is with this kind of testing (which Im interested in) what would the cost be, for big corporates its easily absorbed, for small brands it could be prohibitive and in some cases would make the idea non-viable.
This would be a worry, some small brands like Celtic and Qmoto have a spec that would blow bigger brands out of the water, the cost to prove it would be a concern.
Costs should be graduated dependant on business size.

[Gremlin]

It would certainly be useful to have ratings, to know which are simply padded jackets and which will do a proper job.

While most armour is CE rated, very few garments are, as you have mentioned. The Rukka Armas jackets and trousers are CE rated for the whole garment, and one of the very few worldwide that are. I have an Armas suit, and crashed in it at 100kph. No marks to myself and the garments have some dirt on them. Absolutely worth their weight in gold.

Currently, one of the simplest ways to get an idea of how good a jacket is, is to feel it's weight. Too light, and you suspect there isn't enough fabric/armour. Check the stitching, and beyond that, one person's guess is as good as another.

As for gear in weather, I wear full gear all the time, but this means jeans as a minimum for pants, always boots, helmet, jacket and gloves.

[Urano]

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TEAL you have PM.

[Teal]

Hi Teal. I like the idea of this as it will eliminate poorly made gear from the market, my concern however is with this kind of testing (which Im interested in) what would the cost be, for big corporates its easily absorbed, for small brands it could be prohibitive and in some cases would make the idea non-viable.
This would be a worry, some small brands like Celtic and Qmoto have a spec that would blow bigger brands out of the water, the cost to prove it would be a concern.
Costs should be graduated dependant on business size.

We are not thinking of getting the manufactures to do the testing. We are looking at models for funding it independently - possibily government, health insurance or other consumer protection agencies funding a secret shopper program. That is testing products bought anonymously from retail shops and publishing the results on a website. Although we could offer a testing service to manufacturers as well.

Estimates of testing costs from the European experience suggest that it is not prohibitive. What may put the costs up is if garments fail the tests, and the manufacturer has to put more work into solving the problems - but that is in the best interests of everyone.

[Teal]

Hi Everyone

This has been really interesting and useful for us. We wanted to check with riders who are really involved in riding to find out whether you thought we are on the right track, or if we have missed anything. So thank you.

At the beginning of October we will be releasing an on-line survey - sorry I know you are all surveyed out - but we do need to keep up the dialogue with riders. The survey will be about buying and using protective clothing. I would really appreciated it if you would complete the survey and also send links around to other riders to make sure we get a representative sample in the study.

Check you all later. Safe riding.
LIz

[imdying]

The items that failed, might be worth getting an approximation from the user of how much use they had before they failed?

[FuriousD]

If you want a test dummy I am more then happy to volunteer myself to go skidding down roads. Would be a good bit a craic!

Seriously though I would be willing and very interested in doing that.

[James Deuce]

Motorcycle "safety" gear is just a marketing crock. Motorcyclists aren't the lower socio-economic fly-blown scumbags of old, buying super fast toys that all look the same, so they have Alpinestars onemanship contests and end up wearing gear worth as much as a couple of good workhorse motorcycles and still die when they have a head-on with a car when they cross the centre-line at 240 km/hr.

You can do that riding a GN at 70 km/hr wearing jeans and 40 year old Bell full-face.

You'll be safer if you spend more money on gear! Yeah, right.