Welcome to Billy’s Crash Helmets (US edition)
Thanks for checking us out and welcome to the US edition of BillysCrashHelmets!
Our site aims to help you find the safest motorcycle crash helmets and discover what the folks who bought the helmets think of em.
Safest helmets?
Where a helmet’s been DOT certified – and especially when it’s been tested by the Snell testing labs – we’ll tell you about it in each article.
You’ll also find some talk about the SHARP crash helmet safety test. It’s a UK based helmet safety test but because it’s based around the findings of the most in-depth, real world study of motorcycle accidents ever undertaken (Cost 327) and because they’re entirely independent and publish safety reports which allow us to compare the relative safety of helmets – we use their data quite a bit. One downside is that the UK version of a helmet may differ from ours and we won’t necessarily know. You can find out more about SHARP and Cost 327 here.
Of course no single test will ever cover all bases – but with a baseline of either DOT or ECE 22.05 certification together with independent testing from Snell and SHARP, hopefully the advice we give is as comprehensive as it can be.
At least, that’s the plan. We’re here to give you as much information as we can to help you make the most informed helmet buying decision. And while we try to be as comprehensive, objective and accurate as we can, don’t take our word as gospel. Take in as many opinions as you can before making your helmet choice.
Recommended Retailers (disclosure):
You’ll also find links to online stores dotted around this site. We only link to stores who score well on independent trust rating sites – and we check out their terms and conditions to find stores with the most customer-friendly conditions along with the best ratings.
That way, we hope you get the best buying experience possible and you feel you can trust who we recommend. If you do, it’s a win-win for both of us because when you click through and buy something, and if I’ve managed to set up a deal with the retailer, I should get a small percentage out of the sale at no extra cost to you (it’s called an affiliate agreement). Note – you’ll never be charged more for buying something using one of our links. The price you see is the price the website displays if you go straight to them.
You’ll find info. about our recommended stores here.
How Do our Helmet Reviews Work?
So far, I don’t (mostly) get hands on with the helmets myself. What I do is hunt around the web for reviews, comments, forum posts, videos – anything and everything we can find that relates to a specific helmet model – to find out what folks who’ve spent their hard-earned cash on the helmet and who’ve used it in anger on the road – what they think of the lid.
Anyhow, I reckon that’s much more relevant than getting a helmet sent out and fiddling about with it for a few days then passing judgment. You live with a helmet through winter filth and the dusty days of summer and that’s how you get to know a helmet’s limitations – not by getting one delivered in the post, gawping at it a bit then popping down the mall in it for a ‘road test’.
The internet’s a wonderful thing and is full of folks giving their opinions on all kinds of welcome – and not so welcome – topics. So I use it to get a wide range of helmet users’ and owners’ thoughts and opinions, shove them all in a pot, stir them around a bit, then dish them out in generous dollops in our reviews. And if you’d like to join in, visit the contact page and drop us a note about your helmet – we’d love to know what you think and may well publish your thoughts at the bottom of the review page.
So there you have it. Independent advice, information from motorcyclists who wear/own the helmets and a single useful repository for all things to do with skid lids.
I hope you find it useful!
Billy
(Feb 2012)
