 Myth 5
Myth 5: A Helmet Won't Help in Most Crashes
People look at the seemingly low impact speeds used in motorcycle-helmet testing and assume that if you are going faster than that, the helmet will no longer be up to the job. That ignores a few critical facts:
Most accidents happen at relatively low speeds.
Most of the impact energy is usually vertical—the distance your head falls until it hits.
Helmets (or at least helmets that meet DOT standards) perform spectacular life-saving feats at impact speeds far above those used in testing.
When a helmeted rider suffers a fatal head injury, it frequently doesn't matter, because, to hit hard enough to sustain that fatal injury, he sustained multiple additional fatal injuries to other parts of his body. In other words, the fact that the helmet didn't prevent the head injury was of no consequence.
The numbers clearly say that riders using DOT helmets simply survive crashes more successfully than those without them.
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