Talk:Motorcycle armor

New standards

The article says there are only two European standards for motorcycle armor, but that seems to be outdated. There is now also EN 1621-4 for motorcycle airbags and there is a proposed standard EN 1621-3 for chest protectors. Unfortunately I could not find a good primary source covering them so I have not updated the article. Tschmelcher (talk) 22:06, 19 August 2014 (UTC)

2007

I have added in the last part of this article (begins "Although Cambridge...") as I believe that this information will be helpful to many people. There are various so-called "back protectors" on the market - some of them would provide about as much protection as your average cereal box! That is what CE standards are there for. It must be remembered that even the best products on the market are only going to increase your safety margin a bit - nothing can save you in a really big accident. Roryniles 15:44, 5 February 2007 (UTC)

'Molecular armours'

Regarding the recent edit - firstly, there are a variety of traditional systems that far exceed existing EN 1621-1 / EN 1621-2 protection levels - so called 'molecular systems' are not unique in this respect. Secondly, if claims are made as to any kind of improved performance, please reference this. As far as I'm aware, few manufacturers publish actual test reports from accredited test houses (in the UK, SATRA) - this would be preferable, but in the absence of this a manufacturer's data sheet would be acceptable.

There has been a history of confusion and inaccuracy in the field of motorcycle protection systems and standards; I think most people would agree that trying to keep to objective discussions of reported fact without being biased to any particular technologies is ideal.

At some point I'm going to rewrite the examples of armour systems section, as it's incredibly outdated and doesn't consider any alternatives to foam and hard plastic. No mention for instance is made of elastomer systems.

--Trhoult (talk) 10:15, 16 December 2009 (UTC)

Level 3

I've seen several jackets lately (mostly from Xelement) claiming they are selling a new "Level 3" armor. According to this Wiki there are only two levels. Only one of these can be correct, but I'm having trouble doing research (everything I google winds up at stores selling the armor). But I think it's worth looking up if anyone else wants to. If it's true, that's diffenetly something that should be on the page. But I have a feeling this may be one of those "We don't really qualify for eithe rating, what do we do? Claim we are in our own class!" marketing things. If that's the case, it too might be worth mentioning. I myself was refered here to learn about something to protect my skin if not my life. I'd love to know if Level 3 is the highest possible rating or a good sign it's crap that didn't actually pass the test. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 67.235.241.109 (talk) 12:10, 27 March 2011 (UTC)

There is no such official standard for Level 3 armour, it is just a branding exercise. If you read the marketing guff you will see that they carefully word it by using EN 1621-1 and EN1621-2:2003, which undoubtedly the armour passes, but doesn't actually claim level 3 to be a standard. --Biker Biker (talk) 08:24, 28 March 2011 (UTC)

Echoing what Biker Biker said, it's complete branding talk. It's already pretty difficult to pass EN1621-2 level 2, so any more protective level than that (assuming that's what they're implying) would generally result in quite a thick part.Trhoult (talk) 12:29, 30 March 2011 (UTC)

Lobbying against Level 3

It is claimed in the article that "[t]wo Italian manufacturers – allegedly concerned their armour would not pass the highest standard – successfully lobbied for Level 3 to be removed," but there is no way for the reader to assess the truth of such assertion, since the article contains no reference to this piece of information whatsoever.

Given the fact that the article also reports — this time with an abundance of references — that the current standards for motorcycle protection are ineffective, it produces the overall impression that these two unnamed manufacturers might be in fact partially responsible for the current state of affairs. The fact that the manufacturers are identified only by their country (Italy) shifts such potential blame onto the entire Italian motorcycle gear industry.

This is unfair: either the two manufacturers are clearly identified or the claim is dropped altogether.

(To be extra clear: I'm in no way connected to any motorcycle gear manufacturer. I'm only a motorcyclist concerned with safety — and fairness as well).

Luca Gilardi (talk) 22:42, 22 January 2021 (UTC)

de Rome et al

In two sections, the current article says that "De Rome et al (2011) found that motorcycle armour was not associated with less risk of fractures". But I read the paper and it says, "Given the relatively low occurrence of fractures (15%), compared to soft tissue injuries (71%), in unprotected motorcyclists the sample size was likely too small to be able to detect any such difference." Being unable to detect an association is a lot different than finding that there is no association, and the current description of this paper's findings is misleading. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 2603:7080:B001:1E23:5114:632D:1597:72FE (talk) 05:35, 5 October 2021 (UTC)