Using The Helmet:

A Helmet has an average of 5 to 6 year shelf life from the day its manufactured, with about 3.5 to 5 years of use. The helmet is single use protective gear, one impact it will protect your head and thats it, that is what it is supposed to do. It has a hard outer shell, impact lining, foam, and then the padding. The foam starts to lose it’s elasticity and starts to become a bit brittle after the four year mark but it depends on the manufacturer. As an example Arai stop’s servicing helmets after 7 years from date of manufacturing, so they are very confident of their helmets and they are one of the best.

Personally I tend to replace my helmet every three and half years but then again I have more then one helmet since there are a lot of cool helmets out there.

A Dropped Helmet:

As I mentioned Helmets are a one time impact time of product, one time and then buy a new one. In reality dropping it off a chair or a low high won’t do anything but cosmetic damage. I have recently dropped my Scorpion Helmet and the rear wing cracked but the helmet seems intact, and it fell off my bike onto the asphalt. It also depends on how well the helmet was constructed, keep in mind that it was designed for an impact with your head inside of it, so if it falls on its own it isn’t too bad. But you can not guarantee then integrity structure without having the helmet xrayed by an expert. If you can’t then it isn’t worth the risk since its supposed to be protecting your head your better off just getting a new one.

So after what the Scorpion has been through, I will be retiring it and using my other helmets at this stage.