Serowbot wrote on 02/07/16 at 21:28:45:66% of head impact is in the face and jaw...
Wearing a half helmet is like, wearing a cup on yer' butt...
...
That said,... it's your butt...
I don't think brand, or model, or ratings, matter with half helmets...
Just buy a pretty one...
I've totalled three bikes. First time, a full size helmet woulda killed me or left me a quardaplegic, because I landed on my right shoulder and my head got layed over on the left shoulder.
Cracked three vertebrae that I didn't even know about until the MRI after I smashed the last one. A half helmet might have helped in that spot.
The second one was no helmet, and I didn't even hit my head.
But the hematoma from breaking the handlebars with the spot where the gut/thigh meet hospitalized me a few days. Doc said that the bruise was bad enough to possibly cut off blood to my leg and I would lose it. So, I did what he said.
Third one, HJC flip face,passing a pickup, he decides to turn left.
I slid down the side of the bed, shoulder on the side, Gforces had my head on the top of the bedside. Face first into the cab corner. Impact folded the jaw protection in, split my lip two stitches worth. Mita been four, and the strap Throat Punched me so hard that swallowing was still an effort three weeks later.
Yes, I walked away from all of them. I walked about a mile to a friends house after I broke the handlebars. The pain, unsubsiding, bruise growing, after a few hours, called my doctor, told him to meet me at the ER. He'd seen me since I was thirteen, so he knew that I was hurt, or would not be calling him at home. Last one I waited about four hours, helped load the bike on a trailer.. but the headache that came later scared me, so, ER, here I come.
So, what helmet?
Even though I know an Ear covering length helmet woulda killed me, it's still all im comfortable wearing, and it's Gotta be a flip face. I wear glasses. I use the wrap around plastic ones that they give to those who have had their eyes dilated. Drop in behind the glasses. Looks dorky, works great.
Some protection is better than none, but, as Rowboat points out, statistics sho the majority of the time, it's the face. A plastic bug deflector snapped to the brow is better than nothing , I guess.
I started off with goggles. A few June bugs later, I got a helmet and the plastic shield. The guy in Houston, where I got the Guzzi wised me up. The HJC saved me from, at minimum, complete, emergency reconstructive surgery and dental work that would have bankrupted us.
Helmets CAN be deadly.
Helmets CAN be the difference between a walk away and a funeral.
My windshield has been cracked on my car. Imagine going down the road and getting a 1/4 ounce pebble tossed up and maybe going twenty, and you're going seventy.
Like Popeye says
Ya pays yer money and ya takes yer chances.