Virginia Tech Bicycle Helmet Ratings

Every time helmets come up in biking or motorcycle forums, someone tries to justify their spending habits with, "Well, how much is your brain worth?" Nice to see yet more evidence that price and safety are often not correlated.

(The $65 helmet sits between $200-$300 helments. Unfortunately it doesn't seem to be possible to buy it at that price anywhere.)

Virginia Tech provides helmet safety ratings for a wide range of sports. There is a drop down on the site where you can select a sport.

A couple of years ago they added equestrian helmets. My time on a horse can be counted in minutes but I have found myself the owner/manager of a horse farm and my daughter likes to jump horses over sillily high fences which means the ratings are relevant to me. I can't speak for the other sports but for equestrian helmets cost and safety are not directly related according to the VT, as an aside when did it become referred to as VT instead of VPI, ratings. This caused a great shitstorm in the sport when the initial ratings came out and some of the makers of helmets costing several hundred dollars found themselves at the bottom of the list.