[msandford]

I guess I think cost and perception of the market as the same thing. If you increase cost but don't increase perceived value, then you're lowering profits for a noble reason, but not one that's defensible to shareholders. If you increase cost and increase perceived value at least you maintain profits and you don't get fired.

But if the CSPC doesn't give manufacturers any incentive by having different protection classes or levels or any way to differentiate whatsoever, well, what's the point of spending more money to achieve a good societal outcome if it means that you get fired? Incentives matter and you can look at it from either side of cost but ultimately a lot of what we're talking about here is dollars.

[maxerickson]

My point is that manufacturers can respond to the incentive provided by the market, they don't have to wait for the CSPC to drop a certification.

A simple thesis coming from that point of view is that there isn't much of a market for (presumably) more expensive helmets that protect better in low energy crashes.

[msandford]

Ah, I see what you're saying. And I agree to a certain extent.

I guess what bugs me is that the CSPC is causing (by inaction) many thousands of people who are involved in lower energy bike crashes to get concussions.

Whether there is no market or not I think is debatable though, because the CSPC standard has definitely "warped" the market. In other words, all the helmets pass the standard and it's very difficult to tell if one is "better" than another. And because of that, differentiation is only based on looks.

Because the minimal level of protection is so high it's very hard to effectively market that one helmet is "safer" than another in that it'll protect you in the common but not life threatening crash that most people encounter. And because it's so difficult, nobody does it.

It's not hard to imagine that marketing your helmet as "safer" in some way might result in getting fines from the CSPC or lawsuits from your competitors for libel, since all helmets have to pass the CSPC test.

Given the choice between some risk of getting fired, going to jail, bankrupting your company, etc or just doing nothing, most people with the power to actually make a difference aren't going to risk anything. And I can't really blame them for it.

[maxerickson]

I am assuming that Snell Foundation would not be resistant to developing such a standard, as long as it was somewhat meaningful.

An affirmative statement that a helmet passed a standard could not be construed as libel, and I think the CSPC wouldn't be bothered about it.

[msandford]

> An affirmative statement that a helmet passed a standard could not be construed as libel

OK so if your helmet has passed the standard, and your competitors helmet has too, what is the differentiation?

You have to say "safer" somehow, but the CSPC sort-of has a monopoly on the definition of "safe" and you might well raise their ire by marketing a helmet as "safer" because that undermines the implicit assumption that they are doing their job well by making good standards which are appropriate. So yes if you started doing this without politicking extensively you might end up in a lot of trouble.

If you don't believe me, you might consider reading the rather long, detailed and excellent article by Bicycling Magazine on the issue: http://gearfinder.bicycling.com/senseless/index.html

[maxerickson]

And yet there is a private body that certifies helmets as meeting their private standards:

http://www.smf.org/cert

ETA: the article you link mentions ASTM maintaining a more stringent standard!

It also has this gem, given our discussion:

There may never be an improved government standard for bicycle helmets. Experts may never come to a consensus on a standard for testing the forces most closely associated with concussions. But one test can be administered now: the market test. After all, new technology costs more. "Adding that upcharge to a $50 helmet," Scott Sports designer John Thompson told me, "is a harder sell."

[msandford]

I might suggest that this is the "good Samaritan" principle at work. There is a standard that the government has made, and which it enforces. The government is supposed to do the right thing (at least so people tend to believe, all the evidence to the contrary notwithstanding) and so the existence of SOME governmental standard (even if it isn't great) really screws up attempts to improve upon it.

If there was no definitive standard and instead three competing standards bodies then people would have to get informed a bit and decide what to do. But there's a government standard, so anything that passes it must be OK and everything else is superfluous. I might not think that way when it comes to buying helmets, but how many moms or dads buying their child a helmet might think exactly that?

Once the complexity is hidden behind a good/bad (it passes the test or it doesn't) metric any kind of critical thinking tends to go out the window. The CSPC test is good in that it prevents people from making helmets that would fall apart if you dropped them accidentally.

But it's not good in that there are inherent tradeoffs between foam strength and shock absorption and it has in effect arbitrarily decided that one particular point on that line is the RIGHT tradeoff full stop.

I don't have the stats for lower versus higher energy crashes. But it seems likely to me (based on 30 years and at least 50,000 miles of cycling) that lower energy outweighs higher energy by perhaps some 100:1. And if the distribution is that skewed, then perhaps you could do more good by fixing the low energy crashes even if it costs on the high energy crashes.

But ultimately I'd prefer for people to have that choice by themselves. Right now you can buy high energy helmets and that's about it. There might be SOME that can also protect against lower energy crashes. But there aren't any low energy only helmets for sale ANYWHERE. I might prefer one of those for just tooling around town at speeds of less than 15mph. Thanks to the CSPC if I want one of those I have to make it myself. While I could probably do that it'd cost me a year and $20k and I wouldn't be able to recoup that investment by selling, because again that helmet wouldn't pass the mandatory CSPC muster.

I think the situation stinks, and telling me that it is actually good doesn't make it so.