24/02/2018
Do you own a helmet? This might be useful for you.
We regularly conduct tests to find the best products and during our tests to find the best helmet, we conducted a survey. We wanted to see how many helmets in India were actually ISI certified. We went to over 50 shops and inspected over 100 widely available brands of helmets to see if they were actually ISI certified. To conduct our survey, we took a printout of BIS’s list of certified helmet brands and then jumped from shop to shop and inspected helmets for their CM/L code. What we found scared us.
For those of you who don't know CM/L number is the number located below the ISI mark on your helmet. Each company has a unique CM/L number.
We cross-checked the CM/L number with the BIS’s list.
Here we found, 5 helmets with CM/L numbers that didn’t tally with our BIS list. The five helmets with were:
Rstar (also Rocking and Ggod Singh), Recron, Blaze, Bright
and King.
On closer inspection, we found that Rstar had their license cancelled and Recron’s license was expired. But for the other companies, BIS’s site gave the same message “License does not exist”.
Here’s what is horrifying. These helmets are actually claiming to be ISI certified when in reality they are not. In our opinion, this is far worse than a helmet without ISI certification. At least on helmets without certification, they do not put up these fake ISI marks. So when people buy a helmet without an ISI mark, they know what they are doing. But here, these 5 companies are actually misleading people who want an ISI certified helmet to believe they have an ISI certification. Helmets are our last line of defence, and it only makes sense to wear certified ones. We highly recommend you stay away from the above-mentioned companies and their brands. Also, you should check if your helmet is ISI certified here: http://www.bis.org.in/cert/rep_appl_lic.asp
We bought two of the helmets with fake ISI marks and tested these helmets along with the others we tested and here's what we found:
Protection: Both the helmets with fake ISI marks did not survive our crash tests. Recron, which is even available on Flipkart and Indiamart, could be easily bent with the mere force of hand, which does not allow for a lot of protection. Furthermore, we also tested the retention straps, which could be easily undone with a pull. Retention straps which can be easily undone do not offer any protection to the rider.
Wind Noise Isolation: Our panel of riders used the helmets and drove at a speed of 30 to 40km/hr. There was no wind noise isolation; the wind could be heard clearly and irritated the drivers. Our drivers found that these helmets made their ears ache.
Comfort: These helmets offered no comfort to our riders. The helmet’s had no foam padding, which was extremely uncomfortable for our riders. Additionally, the retention strap was non-adjustable, thereby defeating its purpose. Along with this, we also found that these fake ISI marked helmets come in free sizes and do not fit the rider properly and is tremendously uncomfortable.
Share this article with people you know who have helmets. This would be useful for them and could one day save their life!
Read more about our story here: https://goo.gl/eS4XQG
