‘It split in two during a 30mph test’
As part of an investigation by ITV News, two fake helmets – one branded AGV, the other carrying a fake Arai logo – were put through simulated 30mph crashes by the British Standards Institution. Both failed the tests dramatically, the outer shells splitting apart on impact, with visors and other external parts separating.
Wearing such a helmet on the road is illegal, as they haven’t been tested or certified to the necessary standard. But more critically, they also leave riders completely exposed in the event of a crash. “For someone wearing that helmet, potentially in the first impact it’s going to disintegrate and then they’ve got no protection on their head at all,” said Mark Mayo, BSI’s Personal Safety Testing Team Manager, who conducted the tests.
“We tested three helmets – a genuine AGV, a suspect AGV and a suspect Arai – in line with ECE regulation 22.05, simulating a 30mph impact. Each helmet is tested in four areas, with an instrumented ‘head’ inside the lid measuring how quickly it decelerates. The limit is 275G – above that level you’re going to suffer brain damage that you probably won’t recover from.
“In the first test, the suspect AGV recorded 830G; the suspect Arai was over 700G. If the G level had been much higher, we would have stopped testing as it would have damaged our equipment. The genuine AGV measured 174G.
“During the third test, performed on the crown of the head, the shell on both suspect helmets split in half. It’s appalling. Somebody could be killed just by the first impact alone – the wearer simply would not walk away. And that’s at just 30mph.”
● ‘The wearer would not walk away from it’