No need to replace old bicycle helmets

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Ego
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No need to replace old bicycle helmets

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New study from the Bicycle Helmet Safety Institute
http://bhsi.org/up1505a.htm

Helmets Proven to Perform for Decades

There are reasons to replace your helmet, but simple age is not one of them.

Extensive testing of used (but not crashed) bicycle helmets shows that the foam liners retain their performance over many years. MEA Forensic announced at a May ASTM F08.53 technical meeting the results of their testing of 675 bicycle helmets, some as old as 26 years. "There is no justification for two to ten year replacement recommendations based on impact performance," said MEA's Alyssa DeMarco.

MEA and collaborator Collision Analysis collected 1,500 used helmets from consumers and eliminated any that showed damage or did not have date of manufacture stickers. The helmets studied had dates that ranged from 1987 to 2013. They crash tested them at 3 m/s (1.5 ft.) and 6.2 m/s (2 meters) on a flat anvil in the dry ambient condition. There were only four that exceeded the 300g threshold: three of the oldest models made to meet only the old ANSI standard, and one newer model that had been recalled. So 671 of the helmets passed the current CPSC impact performance standard.

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