More than 5,000 motorcycle riders or pillion passengers are killed annually on European roads and a further 70,000 are seriously injured. In addition to the physical and emotional trauma, the financial cost of these injuries is estimated to exceed 10 billion Euros. The COST 327 European Research Action on motorcycle helmets reported that improvements in helmet design could save up to 1,000 lives per year across the European Union. Approximately 80% of motorcyclists killed on European roads sustained head impacts and in half of these cases, the head injury was the most serious.

TRL has developed with industry an advanced protective helmet which provides a higher level of protection than current helmets to BS 6658A, ECE Regulation 22-05 or Snell M2000. The helmet consists of a lightweight carbon composite shell fitted with an optimised energy absorbing liner and a low friction sacrificial outer surface. The advanced helmet is designed to reduce both linear and rotational acceleration loadings to the head.

In order to quantify the benefits of the advanced helmet, the impact response was measured during a range of impact conditions. The results were related to the AIS scale using correlation coefficients developed by TRL from an accident replication programme. It was shown that the advanced helmet could reduce injury risk by up to 20% for AIS 6 injuries and up to 70% for AIS 5 and AIS 4 injuries. The performance of the helmet during less severe impacts (corresponding to AIS 3, 2 and 1) was designed to be equivalent to current helmet designs.

Given this potential, the UK Department for Transport is collaborating with domestic and European partners in a new project to encourage the introduction of more protective motorcycle helmets. This paper describes the work to date and prospects for the future