Setting a Standard

It all brings us to the idea of setting a standard, or a baseline for makers of neck protection devices to adhere to. As of now, there is nothing to stop a company from stepping forward and claiming that their product is a life-saving device. There is no standard as to who is qualified to make that kind of claim, but to protect ourselves as consumers, perhaps there should be.

Photo right: The ADVenture is the price-point model in the Leatt Brace line, and currently a huge seller.

“For helmets we know that there’s DOT and SNELL,” Cole explained. “But beyond that, it’s kind of just, ‘Do what you want and claim what you want,’ and I don’t know that that’s correct. I am a big fan of less government but I think when it comes to safety, maybe we should be holding some of these companies to a larger, better standard than that. I think not only with this product, but probably in other areas of body protection.”

“There are so many products coming on the market, I think it would be a good idea,” Collins agreed. “Short term I think it would be important to have some sort of regulation on what’s coming out. Long term, as far as the integrity of the actual piece, maybe once there’s more information and more studies available on exactly how it’s protecting, what it does, what it doesn’t do [then we can set a more meaningful standard].”

“There has to be a baseline for these things to be tested,” Patterson declared. “Because if everyone is out there trying to make a quick buck and they don’t understand what they’re making, the potential to hurt somebody is there. We don’t want that.”

It’s easy enough to agree on the need for high standards, and the concept of a baseline, but the problem then arises of how to define that baseline. As we’ve seen in both parts of this feature, there are many schools of thought when it comes to neck protection as far as what you can and cannot protect against. We’ve also seen that there’s no way to control all the variables enough to draw definitive conclusions from testing.

“I think having a standard is a good thing,” Rietdyk said. “But I think it has to be a meaningful standard, one that really measures a multitude of real-life scenarios. I think the problem with that is it’s almost impossible to do.

“No crash is alike. No injury is alike. You can put a blanket solution that in a common sense way, will say, ‘Yeah, this brace would have helped.’ And you’d probably be right. But to fairly test that in a [controlled environment], all the variables out, all things being equal is pretty difficult. I think to come up with a meaningful standard, all these guys, Eddie Cole, Chris Leatt and some folks at Alpinestars, we probably should all say, ‘What’s a fair standard?’ But everybody has to have the right thing in mind and I’m not sure everybody does.”

“I would be in favor of even a really baseline test that says, ‘Let’s put these together and see which one does best’,” Rietdyk continued. “But do you really serve anybody with that? We can say, ‘In this scenario which, Mr. Customer, you might never experience, this product would be best.’ That’s kind of giving him a false indication because he might have a riding style that’s always causing him to fall with his left ear to the ground. So that’s dangerous in a way because it’s pointing someone in a direction of a product that might not be right for him.”

Nonetheless, according to Patterson, Dr. Chris Leatt is already one step ahead and currently pursuing the development of a baseline for neck braces.

“Right now Chris Leatt is working with a number of sanctioning bodies, a number of independent agencies to get neck protection to perform to a certain standard,” Patterson said. “In Europe right now, the brace is now CE certified. In the United States, there really is no such thing. But it is working with a number of bodies to solve that problem. There should be a standard.”

In Conclusion...

All this information leaves us with a lot of unanswered questions, the foremost of which remains, “So which one is best for me?” Well... we can’t answer that for you at this point. We’ve seen that controlled tests are extremely limited (only applying to a rider of a certain weight, traveling a certain speed hitting a specific surface or object at a particular angle) – and therefore the results are potentially negligible. Unfair criticism, false assumptions, rampant hearsay and numerous misconceptions don’t make this decision any easier. Magazine reviews can tell you which is most comfortable, or most stylish. Dealers can tell you which is most popular and price tags can tell you what is most practical. But beyond that, the decision is up to you. All we can do is educate ourselves on the subject, and not be afraid to scrutinize, question and challenge what we’re told before making a potentially life-saving decision.

Back to Part 1: Neck Protection - Let's Talk About It