Neck Protection: Let's Talk About It

Alpinestars

Quite similar in design to the Leatt, but with a very different concept of protection is the Alpinestars Bionic Neck Support (BNS). Their aim is to protect against one thing and one thing only: catastrophic neck injury as a result of compression. According to years of their own research not only utilizing crash test dummies, but human cadavers as well, Alpinestars identified compression as the only form of impact that will likely result in catastrophic neck injury, meaning paralysis or death. In all other forms of impact, they prefer to let your body protect itself through its own natural movement.

“It only comes into play when compression is going to take place, which is the head compressing down toward the torso, or the torso compressing toward the head,” Tim Collins of Alpinestars said. “The way we designed this with the low-swoop neck, low-swoop back, and real thin sidebars is because we want to encourage movement to take place. We want the head to move out of the way of the torso naturally, if possible. Other systems that are out there might have really wide side bars; they may come up higher in the back, or come up higher in the front so that the helmet’s constantly in contact with it regardless of which way the head’s moving. This is really designed contrary to that in that the only time we want it to come into play is compression. Other than that, we want the head to naturally move out of the way because the only time the only time you’re really going to suffer a catastrophic injury – paralysis, death – is at compression.

“People ask, ‘If my head goes back, how am I protected?’ Well, your body naturally protects you by allowing your neck to flex way beyond your helmet touching your back. Although you’re going to have some ligament strain and some definite ancillary injury, it’s not going to be catastrophic.

“We learned all this by studying with cadaver spinal cords,” Collins continued. “We utilized actual cadaver spinal cords so that we could see exactly how much the head and the neck can extend and flex and move and whip around, and then how much it took for a compression to fracture or break the neck or the spinal cord.”

After coming up with their distinct concept of protection, Alpinestars took steps to design the BNS, which Collins explained: “We aimed to come up with something that contained a completely rigid frame but that also but that allowed maximum dissipation of energy upon impact. [The BNS] is a full-carbon frame which makes the system completely rigid and virtually indestructible. At the same time, all of these dense foam pieces, on the chest and on the back, are designed to break progressively on impact to help dissipate energy. It’s along the same lines of a MotoGP rider sliding on the pavement and that energy is leaving the body. If you stick your head straight into the dirt, your torso compresses toward your head and that energy doesn’t have anywhere else to go. But if that load has a place to go – either on the back or on the chest – then there’s less chance for a catastrophic injury to take place.

“The main frame is designed to maintain its integrity and withstand multiple impacts because of the rigid carbon design. The dense foam material, however, is designed to break or compress, similar to the inside of a helmet. (And of course, they’re all fully replaceable.) The energy that’s causing it to snap and fly away from the body is energy that’s taken away from the neck and the vertebrae.”

As far as the motivation behind developing their technology, Alpinestars quite openly states that it had nothing to do with the inception of the Leatt Brace.

“I couldn’t give you a specific timeline without looking at actual notes or anything like that, but as far as development was concerned, we were in development prior to the Leatt Brace even coming out,” Collins stated. “So it’s arguable that the concept of neck protection wasn’t necessarily a Leatt-driven idea. We had ideas and direction on neck protection before they released the product.”

“We really are constantly striving to develop the best and most technologically advanced products out there across all lines of motorsports and action sports,” Collins said. “We want to come up with something that’s going to better-protect members of the Alpinestars family, being our athletes our friends, all the ambassadors for our brand. So neck protection was kind of a natural step, just like helmets were years ago. It’s just the next step in protection based on what the athletes are doing and how extreme sports are getting.”

Also in the name of protection, Alpinestars is a big proponent of educating its dealers and consumers, in this case, making sure they know exactly what the BNS protects you from as well as what it does not. Each unit comes with a “Safety Critical Information” booklet with a warning to “ignore at your peril.” Complete with pictures, graphs, charts and analogies, the science and research behind the BNS is explained in plain language with its full contents repeated in nine different languages. Also included is a section on “what you really should know about neck injury mechanisms,” which, it states, “is not exclusive to the Bionic Neck Support and applies to other neck brace devices of rigid construction that work with the helmet.”

“This goes to all the consumers so it’s not a trade secret or something that’s private,” Collins said. “We are coming out with information that says, ‘Here’s what it will do, but here’s what it won’t do. Educate yourself.’ as opposed to just running an ad campaign that says, ‘Hey, here you go. It’s the end-all, be-all. It’s the helmet for your neck.’ Well, shoot. There’s a lot of people that are going to put that on really thinking that and really hurt themselves.”

Alpinestars makes it a point to not pitch its product with confidence-inspiring assertions, but with a solemn reminder that the risk for neck injuries is always present.

“I wish I could quote a statistic on how much additional protection it could offer,” Collins said. “But you don’t know how somebody’s going to crash, the first time or the hundredth time. So it’s a step in the right direction. Unless the helmet was completely attached to this, and your head was completely immobile the entire time you were riding, there’s no way of guaranteeing that you’re not going to suffer some type of injury while still wearing it. It’s the same thing with a helmet, chest protector, boots or anything.”