The Scene

THE SCENE

IVAN J. WAGAR

THE SHOCKING RESULTS OF FEDERALLY FUNDED HELMET TESTS

TWO MAJOR breakthroughs occurred for helmet buyers last year. Congress declared a motorcycle rider’s helmet to be an item of motor vehicle equipment. And Federal funding was acquired to test a large number of helmets sold in the public market place.

I have advocated such off-the-shelf testing and supported a well-policed Federal standard since my Presidential appointment tó the National Motor Vehicle Safety Advisory Council in August 1970. The reason I have done so is the great proliferation of poor headgear in the chaos created when the Government forced the states to adopt compulsory helmet usage laws without a meaningful helmet standard to back it up.

Now the first results of the Federally funded tests are in. They are shocking.

Only a small percentage of four samples each of 54 helmet models purchased at random from dealer shelves across the country passed the minimal Z90.1 standard for which they had been certified—a standard that sort of assures survivability in a 13.5 mph fixed barrier collision.

These tests were conducted by Dayton T. Brown, an independent test lab, and one of the three labs approved by the Safety Helmet Council of America (the trade association). Their results show the biggest fallacy of the Z90.1 standard now required by most of the 44 states with helmet laws: a manufacturer can send four prototype samples of a model to a lab and do whatever he wants with the production versions, after certification.

These tests have proved to the Feds that the forthcoming Federal Standard, effective March 1, 1973, has to be tougher than Z90.1. The fact that it will be policed in much the same way as tires presently are will force helmet manufacturers to clean up their act.

Had these failures occurred under a Federal standard, the manufacturers could have been required to pay up to $1000 per failure, and up to a maximum of $400,000 in penalties.

PHASE TWO: YOU CAN HELP

It is known that helmets degrade with age. The Feds have issued a new contract to compare those models already tested with the same types after they have aged for a year or more.

If you have a helmet model that appears on the chart and is at least one year old, you will be paid its full purchase price. You can help. And at the same time you can buy an equivalent new helmet free.

Send a postcard to the Feds, with your address on it, telling them you have a helmet available. State brand, model and age of the helmet. They’ll contact you. The address is: Office of Defect Investigation, NHTSA, Department of Transportation, Washington, DC 20590. [5]