This isn't the first time we've covered helmet quality in MCM. There's a lot of serious research out there testing what actually happens to your head and your brain upon impact, and I can boil down the results with basically two conclusions: 1) wearing a helmet -- any helmet -- is infinitely smarter than riding without one and 2) the differences between helmets of varying "quality" and cost are more pronounced at lower speeds, while at higher speeds, these make less and less difference, especially in a blunt impact collision (as opposed to a sliding or tumbling getoff). Think of your brain as really just so much gelatine inside your skull. It's soft and squishy, not rigid like bone or fibrous and controllable like muscle. Upon impact, especially a blunt impact with extreme deceleration, inertia causes your gelatinous brain to get slammed up against the inside of your skull, causing intensive blunt-force trauma, tearing, ruptures, etc. Your helmet might take that collision with flying colors, and might minimize skull fracturing, but your brain inside probably will be hemorrhaging badly and swelling rapidly, thus causing even more damage. Yes, having the helmet helps, but all the expensive gel or soft padding in the world won't make much difference because it's the instantaneous deceleration that causes the damage.

Blunt impact at slower speeds probably can be better mitigated by the "superior" materials of a "better" (more expensive) helmet, but it's not really rational to expect a linear relationship between expense and protection. A 2000 rmb helmet surely is not "twice" as safe as a 1000 rmb helmet. Folks spending 5000 or 6000 rmb on a helmet are deluding themselves if they think this provides exponentially better protection than an 800 rmb HJC.

One final thought about full-face helmets vs flip-fronts, with the caveat that this is my own unscientific theory: While the full-face might provide marginally better protection in a violent collision because it doesn't have a flip front that might fly open, I think I'd rather be in the flip-front in the aftermath of an accident when paramedics (OK, this is strictly hypothetical here in China) want to get the helmet off of my head. With a full-face, there's probably no alternative to cutting it off, which probably costs a lot of time, while with the flip front it may be possible to remove it safely with minimal additional damage to my head, neck and spine because it DOES come open and perhaps can be pulled apart.

I remember ChinaV, myself and others posting about some of these issues in an earlier thread.

cheers,
euphonius