We’re Learning More About Helmet Safety
In 2022, the Virginia Tech Helmet Lab released the results of an interesting and telling study on 40 equestrian helmets, ranking them in safety, impact and concussion risk.
The results were quite surprising: The top three safest helmets, according to the university, featured a range of brands from the very highest price point to the lowest. The helmets underwent 12 impact tests in the lab which made up the criteria of the rankings.
This year, Virginia Tech researchers have released more information about helmet safety following that initial study. Published in the Annals of Biomedical Engineering last month, researchers aimed to study how head rotation plays a role in safety ratings, as equestrians are often traveling at higher speed when they fall, which directly affects “helmet behavior.”
These high-speed accident scenarios were not included in the initial 2022 study. But this latest update builds on the lab’s previous work, which documented video-captured falls across equestrian disciplines, where riders fell from different heights on the front, side and back of the helmet.
“Rotational motion of the head is very important,” said Steve Rowson, helmet lab director, in a statement. “While our testing already incorporated rotational head motion, falling off a horse at high speed can put a large force across the helmet and generate rotation in a different way than our previous testing. This means that the helmets behave a little differently during low-speed and high-speed impact scenarios.”
The testing includes impact scenarios where a horse and rider are moving with “horizontal velocity” or galloping, seen most often in the cross-country phase of three-day eventing and horse racing.
The new testing criteria was inspired by the Federation Equestre Internationale’s (FEI) technical report on new testing protocols for helmets, the lab stated.
“FEI suggested a new testing standard where the head is dropped on an angled surface, which is very similar to how we already test bicycle helmets in the lab,” Rowson said in a statement. “This test does a great job of simulating high-speed falls, so we worked to include tests similar to the FEI specification to have a more comprehensive test protocol.”
The updated ratings are available here, on the Virginia Tech Helmet Lab website.
The helmets which performed best under the expanded test criteria are several options available from the brand Champion Equestrian, with iterations of the “Revolve” model also including MIPS safety technology. Next on the list were models from the Trauma Void brand.
All helmets included in the test meet ASTM certifications and many were equipped with MIPS.
The initial 2022 study was truly the first of its kind of equestrian sport in America. In 2018, a Swedish insurance company performed a similar test on 15 popular helmet brands. Here are some of the key takeaways from the Virginia Tech study.