Right at the beginning of the 2025 riding season in North America, rider and YouTuber Caroline of 'Doodle on a Motorcycle' had a bad crash, and one that kept her off her bike for months. Ever since that time, she's been doing what most of us who've ever crashed can probably relate to pretty hard: Analyzing and re-analyzing what went wrong, and ways she can be better prepared for the slide that could come with future rides.
My first crash with injury made me put on proper motorcycle pants, which I'd previously not considered as important as I should have done. I had a proper helmet, jacket, gloves, and boots, after all; wouldn't regular pants be just fine? I mean, my legs were covered right? I hadn't been riding for very long, so I didn't know any better (and also, I was trying to not spend more money than I had to). But that turned out to be a big mistake, one I learned from, and I've always worn proper, armored motorcycle pants ever since.
Think back through your own riding career, and what various injuries have taught you. I'd imagine you have stories of a similar nature, if you've been riding long enough. We all do.
What we don't all do is cut our helmets in half to examine the foam, and then go visit the MIPS rotational force testing facilities in Sweden to learn more about how rotational forces aren't accounted for in current helmet testing standards. That's what Caroline did, however.
Much has been made of how US DOT standards aren't nearly as safe as ECE standards, but plenty of safety-minded folks get around their misgivings about that issue by simply buying a helmet that meets the most current ECE standard, even if they live in the US.
But the main issue that Caroline raises is that rotational force is present in a lot of crashes. The MIPS system accounts for these forces and works to mitigate them, and is present in a large number of helmets for multiple types of sports; just not all helmets. Current helmet safety rating systems measure linear forces when assigning their ratings; not rotational forces. And the problem is, rotational forces are not at all an uncommon concern in real-life crashes.
Which brings us back to Caroline's crash. While she luckily didn't suffer a traumatic brain injury, she interviewed a few other riders who have suffered TBIs in crashes for this video, and they shared their stories. Where Caroline's rotational force injury story comes in is her knee, which got her thinking about how much worse it could have been if it had been her head instead; and thus, this video.
One key takeaway here, too, is that MIPS works with a number of motorcycle helmet manufacturers that license the technology for use in helmets at a ton of price points. There are expensive helmets that may or may not have it, and there are much more affordable helmets that may or may not have it. But in any case, whatever your budget might be, it's most likely something that you'll want to look into next time you're helmet shopping, either for yourself or someone you care about.
After all, you only have one brain. Presumably, you want to keep it as healthy as you can for as long as you can. I know I do. Not all YouTube content is a public service like this video, so definitely take 20 minutes if you can and give it a watch. It'll live in your head rent-free after that for next time you're looking for a new helmet.
