Helmet which one?? :S

[Wayney]

Chaps, looking to purchase a V2 Pro. Has any one had any 1st hand experience of using one? Is it any good?
Seems like really good value for money at £139 & its SNELL SA2005 Approved.

http://www.v2sport.com/V2pro-white-snell-sa2005-ms...

[Trev450]

Excellent value for money I'm told.

[andy97]

Whatever you get, make sure it fits properly. Different manufacturers have different ideas about what shape represents the "standard" head & they are not all the same! This also means that some of the expensive helmets are not necesarily the best ones for a given individiual, if their head shape doesn't fitr the "template". and vice versa. the only way to find out is to try them on & that means "no" to mail order (unless you already know which model suits you best because you've tried it on elsewhere.

To give a real world eg, I bought a Bell some time ago via mail order but ended up being very uncomfortable in it as it was tight on my forehead. I ended up gouing to DT in Wrexham & trying their selection on. The best fit ended up being a Sparco. This was an expensive(ish) mistake but not as expensive as if I'd found out that the best fit was actually an Arai!

[trophies]

Make sure you try one on. I have a gp5 at the min. The reason i have it is because, its safe, comfortable and fashionable! I wanted a new lid for this year and thought stuff fashion i'm going for a v2(afterall they should all be safe.) I tried the V2 and it felt awful, maybe because I have been spoiled by previous helmets.

I have decided to keep mine for now and buy a gp6 later in the year.

[Forbes82]

Happy v2 customer here.

Fits well, quality seems similar to my fathers bell/arai's, certainly looks and feels like it would do the job just as well as they would if needed. The arai is probably a tad more comfortable but the v2 pro sure isn't uncomfortable for me. I believe if your size is wrong you can swap them easily, however i followed their size instructions and the one that came for me was a decent fit.

I completely recommend them, and everyone who has seen it has been impressed for the price. A real bargain and i feel we will see more and more of them pop up in club race series over the next couple of years.

[Andrew Busby]

Wayney said:

Chaps, looking to purchase a V2 Pro. Has any one had any 1st hand experience of using one? Is it any good?
Seems like really good value for money at £139 & its SNELL SA2005 Approved.

http://www.v2sport.com/V2pro-white-snell-sa2005-ms...

Is your head really good vfm too? Get the best you can afford.

[V8mate]

Both my son and I use V2 helmets; very comfortable for both of us.

As for the head protection they afford the wearer, the little sticker tells me make the grade.

[dunc_sx]

One more happy v2 customer here, had experienced racers comment that it compares well to their £600 Arai etc also.

Dunc.

[thunderbelmont]

I bought an Impact hat last year, superb value - bought it direct from the factory - so you have to take exchange rates into consideration. They do a Carbon lid (Eurosport) for $1095, which comes in at £675 plus shipping. Compares to a conventional construction lid from Arai or similar. OK, you need to add $60 for HANS posts that you will need to source yourself and get shipped to Impact (I used another outfit in Brownsburg Indiana - just down the road from Impact's factory - they dropped them around F.O.C.)

Their regular hats run out at $380ish - which today comes to you at £234, and you get a lot of hat for your money. You can get them from the likes of Demon Theives - Impact Champ £299 ex VAT. That's a funky lid!

There are knockers of the Impact brand because of the grief they went though over the last couple of years. Then again, people still love Lancia, even if the engines did fall out of their cars due to rot, and we keep buying computers that run Windows, even though it's unstable, and has more holes in it than a chainlink fence, and think it's wonderful.

[Forbes82]

Andrew Busby said:

Is your head really good vfm too? Get the best you can afford.

Which Helmets pass safety tests more stringent than current Snell Regs? Why would an Arai or bell be any better in an accident when they have been made and designed to pass exactly the same tests? Have you ever been on a track day or been go karting and used anything but a top of the range carbon fiber helmet?

I don't see why the V2 should be seen as any more or less safe than helmets that pass the same safety tests.

[RobM77]

Forbes82 said:

Andrew Busby said:

Is your head really good vfm too? Get the best you can afford.

Which Helmets pass safety tests more stringent than current Snell Regs? Why would an Arai or bell be any better in an accident when they have been made and designed to pass exactly the same tests? Have you ever been on a track day or been go karting and used anything but a top of the range carbon fiber helmet?

I don't see why the V2 should be seen as any more or less safe than helmets that pass the same safety tests.

Because the safety tests are a minimum standard, like the MoT is for a car, but that doesn't mean all cars that pass have the same roadworthiness. I don't know this for sure, but I would hope that a decent helmet would exceed the minimum Snell standards. Obviously, if you pay more you get lightness and extra features, but I would hope extra safety also features.

[Munter]

RobM77 said:

Because the safety tests are a minimum standard, like the MoT is for a car, but that doesn't mean all cars that pass have the same roadworthiness. I don't know this for sure, but I would hope that a decent helmet would exceed the minimum Snell standards. Obviously, if you pay more you get lightness and extra features, but I would hope extra safety also features.

Hope is not a strategy.

Remember the bike helmet test where some of the cheaper helmets offered better protection in the real world tests over the SNELL tests. Ok these are for use in cars so the SNELL tests make sense here. But there may be unintended consequences of reaching for a higher level test (whatever that might be) that we don't know about.

We know that a group of "respected" people have done work to come up with a standard that offers good protection (well above what some helmets can manage). We know the helmets in question have passed tests to show they meet those standards (or we assume the distributor would be being sued quite badly right now).

I wouldn't pay 3 times the price for a Fiesta with a Ferrari badge on it in the "hope" it was better than the one with a Ford badge on it.

[RobM77]

Munter said:

RobM77 said:

Because the safety tests are a minimum standard, like the MoT is for a car, but that doesn't mean all cars that pass have the same roadworthiness. I don't know this for sure, but I would hope that a decent helmet would exceed the minimum Snell standards. Obviously, if you pay more you get lightness and extra features, but I would hope extra safety also features.

Hope is not a strategy.

Remember the bike helmet test where some of the cheaper helmets offered better protection in the real world tests over the SNELL tests. Ok these are for use in cars so the SNELL tests make sense here. But there may be unintended consequences of reaching for a higher level test (whatever that might be) that we don't know about.

We know that a group of "respected" people have done work to come up with a standard that offers good protection (well above what some helmets can manage). We know the helmets in question have passed tests to show they meet those standards (or we assume the distributor would be being sued quite badly right now).

I wouldn't pay 3 times the price for a Fiesta with a Ferrari badge on it in the "hope" it was better than the one with a Ford badge on it.

By saying "hope" I was trying to imply that I didn't know, and to be honest what you've said isn't conclusive either - you've said that in tests "some" cheaper helmets offer better protection than more expensive ones. "Some" indicates that a minority buck the trend that I've implied, but what's the general trend for the majority of helmets? What's the general advice for a buyer? Just because a few £200 helmets have been seen to stand up better in tests than a few £1000 helmets that doesn't mean we should all buy £200 helmets. I would expect that it's likely that on average a £1000 helmet will offer more protection than a £200 helmet.

I don't know any of this for sure, but I wanted to comment when I saw a post giving the usual mis-understanding that all things that meet a minimum standard are the same, which is of course not true in any sport. I've even been told this by salesmen in shops when I'm buying safety gear (not just for motor racing), and it's misleading and illogical. In the same way that two cars with MoTs won't have the same chance of breaking down, I would have thought that two helmets that pass the same Snell standards don't necessarily offer the same level of safety.

[Munter]

RobM77 said:

I would have thought that two helmets that pass the same Snell standards don't necessarily offer the same level of safety.

Which is exactly my point. We don't know which offers the best safety when both are identical in the standards they have passed. Your then in to supposition, and hope. Basically guessing. Yet people constantly roll out "buy the expensive one" as if they do know. All we know about the protection offered by any of these helmets are what standards they have passed. The rest is guess work.

The bike helmets that performed better over expensive ones was because of the cheaper construction techniques used. A SNELL helmet has to withstand multiple impacts on the same place. So the shell is very hard, and the internals are much "stiffer". And that's great at simulating a roll cage/door pillar hitting a driver. But for a bike they generally take one big hit (from the riders head height to the ground), and then skid along a bit. The "softer" impact absorbing materials do a better job in that case. I said "some" because they only tested "some" helmets, but all the cheaper ones they did test came out best for a "typical" bike type one big hit accident.

It's the law of unintended consequences. A bit like EURO NCAP making older cars more dangerous because new cars are stiffer.

All we can say with any accuracy is that these helmets meet the SNELL requirements. Anything else could just be clever marketing and fear, or could be based on something worthwhile. But it's all guess work.

[RobM77]

Precisely. I must confess though, if I can afford a £600 helmet I'd rather buy one over a £200 helmet, purely because it's more likely it'll be safer. Naturally, there are the other benefits, such as weight and fit, the former being good for comfort (especially in a downforce single seater), and the latter affecting safety just as much as the helmet itself.

Do remember though with regard to your comparison that there are different safety standards for saloon car racing than there are for bikes...

[NTEL]

Another aspect is comfort. When I was looking for a new helmet I tried loads on, including a V2 which I borrowed from a mate. Unfortunately the only one that felt comfortable enough to wear for longish periods was an Arai which ended up costing me £600 Guess I just have an Arai shaped head !

[RobM77]

NTEL said:

Another aspect is comfort. When I was looking for a new helmet I tried loads on, including a V2 which I borrowed from a mate. Unfortunately the only one that felt comfortable enough to wear for longish periods was an Arai which ended up costing me £600 Guess I just have an Arai shaped head !

The padding in my £600 Arai is a lot more contoured and multi-surfaced that in my old £350 Shoei, and it fits much better (which I guess increases safety by itself). For my original £350 budget when I started racing, I couldn't find anything that fitted as well as an Arai for nearly twice the price, which is precisely what I bought when budget allowed. Another thing is that, as you say, there is definitely such a thing as an "Arai shaped head". For example, Bell helmets have never fitted me. Weight is another thing - the Arai is more comfortable because of lower weight, and I'm guessing in an accident will add less momentum to my head than a cheaper and heavier helmet, which is a good thing for the head but also the neck - I presume?

[Forbes82]

RobM77 said:

Because the safety tests are a minimum standard, like the MoT is for a car, but that doesn't mean all cars that pass have the same roadworthiness. I don't know this for sure, but I would hope that a decent helmet would exceed the minimum Snell standards. Obviously, if you pay more you get lightness and extra features, but I would hope extra safety also features.

If i am looking at two cars, one costing 1000 and one with a better badge and a nicer interior costing 2000, both having passed a recent MOT. Just because one costs more, has a more desierable name and might look better, does not make it a safer car.

I realise the SNELL test does not mean they are exactly the same, but there is no reason i see for the Arai to be safer than the V2. You would HOPE for extra safety feature, but, much like a race suit, i think unless you spend top dollar to get one with a completely different construction, you are just getting a name, maybe a more plush interior/more modern looking shell and perhaps a different country of manufacture.

If you really are that safety conscious then you would be wearing a Carbon lid, as these undoubtedly are safer, everything less that passes snell, well its just pure speculation over what offers better protection.

One thing that would help everyone though would be a better rating system. Perhaps SNELL could come up with a 1-10 rating system depending on how easily the tests were passed, with everything over a 5 being a pass. However as it stands none of us can really say one helmet is any safer than another simply based on price and looks.

[RobM77]

Forbes82 said:

If i am looking at two cars, one costing 1000 and one with a better badge and a nicer interior costing 2000, both having passed a recent MOT. Just because one costs more, has a more desierable name and might look better, does not make it a safer car.

A "better badge"?! I'm surprised to hear such a thing on Pistonheads. Sure, a £50k Porsche probably has a better image and a nicer interior than a £10k Fiat, but if you look past the superficial Mumsnet qualities you'll generally find that in the Porsche the design and engineering are better, the materials better quality and the manufacturing is better as well.

All I'm trying to say is that generally, it's statistically more likely that a more expensive helmet will be safer. I'm not saying it's a guarantee or that there aren't exceptions, but generally in life you get what you pay for, and that extends to all aspects of a product.

[Munter]

RobM77 said:

Forbes82 said:

If i am looking at two cars, one costing 1000 and one with a better badge and a nicer interior costing 2000, both having passed a recent MOT. Just because one costs more, has a more desierable name and might look better, does not make it a safer car.

A "better badge"?! I'm surprised to hear such a thing on Pistonheads. Sure, a £50k Porsche probably has a better image and a nicer interior than a £10k Fiat, but if you look past the superficial Mumsnet qualities you'll generally find that in the Porsche the design and engineering are better, the materials better quality and the manufacturing is better as well.

All I'm trying to say is that generally, it's statistically more likely that a more expensive helmet will be safer. I'm not saying it's a guarantee or that there aren't exceptions, but generally in life you get what you pay for, and that extends to all aspects of a product.

I don't think in a crash that a 50k Porsche is going to be safer than say a 20k Mondeo though. Taken to the extreme the Lexus LFA that crashed into a 3 series probably killed it's driver because it was a Carbon tub, while those in the 3 series survived. Again unintended consequences of the design where the price difference is large. What people expect to keep them safe (a strong car) may actually cause more damage to them. How stiff is the Porsche...is it "too stiff"? We don't know (I'm guessing no NCAP score).

As someone said above what we really need are higher and graded rankings of helmets, and a view of the results of the various tests. If they say "4 out of 5 in an impact test, but heavy (increased risk of basal skull fracture), and fire retardation 2 out of 5", you might consider it for an occasional trackday helmet, where you're not wearing a harness, or any other fireproofing.

Otherwise all we're doing is guessing and could be suggesting people spend £100s of pounds on a "nicer" helmet that offers no greater protection in the manner they will be using it.

edit:bugger thought this thread was in the trackday section. Still the principles stand even if my example now sucks.

Edited by Munter on Friday 25th February 11:50