400,000 UK motorcyclists are wearing crash helmets that need to be replaced

At Arai, we place a 7 year life span on all of our helmets to ensure our Arai In House standards of safety are maintained.

With regards to safety, the main part of the helmet which warrants it being replaced is the EPS or Inner Shell – this is purely age related.

 The EPS (Expanded Poly Styrene) or Inner Shell is effectively your shock absorber – when there is an impact on the outer shell, it takes the initial impact energy before it moves to your EPS which then dampens that force before it reaches your head.

 From the time the EPS itself is produced, it slowly hardens at a rate of 5% per year, meaning after 7 years you have lost 35% of your helmets ability to absorb energy in an impact – this drops it below Arai In House standards for impact absorption, meaning we regard the helmet as unsafe. It’s the nature of polystyrene as a material, so is applicable to most helmets.

 Arai are the only manufacturer who use a one piece, multiple density EPS – something that can only be made by hand as it is a very complicated production process to ensure that impact absorption is of the absolute highest level.

 We recommend thinking about a replacement helmet at 5-7yrs for weekend riders, 3-5yrs if you do regular track riding and every year if you’re racing.

 The age is related to the date of manufacture, which can be found on the “D” ring of your chin strap.

Two methods are used:

A)     Date stamp of MM/YY

B)      Letter coded stamp of Y/MM – The year is the letter (A=2001; B=2002; C=2003; etc), followed by the month number so O11 = 2015 NOVEMBER

 It’s important your helmet stays fresh to effectively absorb energy, and protect your head.

 And you’ll miss out on a lot of great helmets if you only replace every 7 years!