Why I Stopped Wearing Motorcycle Body Armour

It's worth mentioning that EN17092 tests garments with the pads *removed*. Meaning a AAA jacket or pant, which has been drop tested on the Darmstadt machine at 120kph, will still slide to a highway-speed stop without costing you skin (70kph for AA, 45kph for A). C-class garments have no abrasion resistance criteria whatsoever; this would be something like a mesh chassis for holding armour. Obviously, removing the pads from that would be silly, since its only purpose is to hold armour and you might as well wear a T-shirt instead. On that note, there are hero companies that make pads to greatly exceed CE 2 size and attenuation requirements. Aside from the Dainese back pad I showed, Rukka's D3O XTR comes to mind (link in description). Those pads are huge compared to the Type B template, and size matters if you're going to rely on pads to get to wherever your abrasion comfort level is. We don't always slide precisely on our shoulders, elbows and knees. It's usually the butt. We all have our own equations for balancing comfort v. practicality v. safety, which is why I made a point of not telling people to take the armour out of their jackets (twice!). Fortunately the CE standards make it fairly clear what your gear can and can't do, enabling us all to choose the stuff that achieves whatever we're after. ~RF9

Wait... did he just... DID HE JUST ROCK A 6 MINUTE SINGLE TAKE?!?! Respect.

As an orthopaedic surgeon (and a motociclist) I can say that its easier (and got better results) to fix lower Energy fracture than higher energy fractures... So, the benefit of using this gear may not protect you from having that fracture in the first place, but may shield you from months of reabilitation and permanent pain and limitation.

I just crashed today because of an old man that did not see me. I landed extremely hard on my left shoulder without breaking any bones or any serious damage, just a lot of pain. It's crystal clear to me the importance that those stupid rubber things had during the crash: they helped me to soften the main impact and shielded my shoulder from the tarmac. Before this crash i thought they were useless as you said in the video, but i left them in my jacket just to be extra safe .. and I'm very glad i did.

The comments and insight elicited from doctors, EMTS, engineers, and other riders in response to this video are more valuable than the video.

having pads in my jeans is worth it just for the many times I'm on my knees trying to fix my moto on the side of the road

I’m an ER doc. I know armour won’t help in worst case, high energy scenario’s, but it helps mitigate the contusions, abrasions and lacerations in the kind of spills we are more likely to suffer. I had a low speed mishap riding off road in Iceland and diced up the elbows and arms of my riding jacket on volcanic rock. I had a few minor scratches from punctures through the Cordura fabric in the unpadded areas, but without armour protection it would have been a long complicated journey to a distant hospital to suture up contaminated, complex lacerations that would have terminated my bucket list trip. Some dabs of Polysporin for the skin and duct tape for the jacket and I was good to go.

In all of my on and offroad crashes, I have never once thought, man I wish I didnt have these pads on. I understand the point you’re conveying, but my knees and elbows have always been grateful for my padding. Im keeping my road armor.

I tripped and fell in my living room like an idiot, my foot got caught on something and I hit the ground hard enough that it would have almost definitely broken my knee, but I had just gotten home and was wearing my cheap motorcycle pants, and it almost didn’t hurt at all. Just because something isn’t 100% effective doesn’t mean it’s not worth having. If you hit something just hard enough to break a bone and the pad only takes 10% of the impact that’s still enough to save you.

Body Armor is redundant as I ride around in chain mail and knight armour anyways.

On behalf of Liz de Rome: In the research paper (AAP, 2011), we reported that riders wearing motorcycle clothing fitted with impact protection (IP) were significantly less likely to sustain any injuries than were riders wearing motorcycle clothing without IP and those wearing non-motorcycle clothing. The analysis compared injured and uninjured riders by level of protection taking other factors into account such as crash type, object impacted and speed. We were able to demonstrate significant reductions in open wound injuries associated with level of protection, but not fractures. In our discussion, we explain that the study sample (n=212) was too small to determine statistically significant evidence for the reduction of fractures. This is because fractures represent just 15% of riders’ injuries, compared to 71% soft tissue injuries across a population sample of crashed motorcycle riders. We strongly recommend that riders continue to wear impact protectors. Associate Professor Liz de Rome.

This one made me double take. I usually trust you for information, but this seemed so irresponsible that I had to go check sources and find out you were largely mis-representing them. Please reconsider this video. I know you're saying "you" are not using it, and not "recommending" others do or do not, but come on.. you're a role model for a lot of us out there.

I have fallen on pavement wearing a fully padded jacket and a pair of regular jeans. my hip was bruised, my knee was F'ed up for about three months, but my elbow, which hit the ground first, wasn't even bruised, nor was my shoulder or any other part of my upper body. Armor makes a difference, the 50J impact is just a number used for testing purposes, most likely to ensure that the armor will endure an unrealistically hard hit even if your bones wont. After that i high-sided on a hard packed dirt road going about 60 km/h, flew over the handlebars and hit the ground 5m in front of the bike. This time i was wearing padded jeans as well. Not a single bruise, got up and lifted my bike back up. Had I not been wearing armor my elbow would have been shattered and my knees wouldn't have been much better off. Don't spread misinformation, of course armor protects you from fractures, use common sense and don't over-analyze a lab test.

Unfortunately, lack of quality armour is how we lost Ryan F9. This is his clone, Ryan F10.

Those studies don’t capture the 1000s of people who crash wearing the protection with no injury. Only the injured get captured in the data, similar to a survivorship bias.

Ryan, I fell 15 years ago. Jacket, helmet, boots, did the job. I wasn't wearing gloves. It still hurt sometimes... now I ride only fully armed.

Dude did a 6-minute video, 1 shot, no cuts yet still informative, engaging, and thought-provoking. Mind blown 🤯

I'm an EMT. Been one for going on 13 years. I've seen more than my fair share of moto accidents. I can't say that gear has ever really prevented a fracture or not, but one thing I do think MUST be mentioned, that moto gear (with or without armor) DOES DO INSANELY WELL, is ABRASION resistance. Yes, a broken bone sucks, but I've seen a woman's breast belt sanded off by the asphalt because she only had on a sweatshirt. Down to the bone. Anecdotally, I have lowsided before at a pretty pedestrian 25-30mph. Armored jacket, regular denim pants. The jacket took the hit and I had no bruise or injury on my arm. The road went through my pants like they were tissue paper and I have a softball sized scar on my knee now. Armor wouldn't have really mattered there, but a pant with abrasion resistance absolutely would have. So while I can't critique the argument against armored pads because I'm not an expert on the literature and most severe motorcycle accidents I've seen have had broken bones with and without armor, I can say that road rash can be a nightmare and have never seen road rash on an area where someone was wearing proper gear, and ALWAYS seen it on every single person that wasn't wearing any. To that end, I think it's a bit of a disservice to leave that part of the equation hanging and not mentioned. That airbag is going to save you from a broken clavicle, but if you aren't wearing an abrasion resistant layer as well, the road might well grind your skin, fat and muscles down to the bone. We call those chest protectors with no sleeves "organ donor vests" for a reason.

Credit to the cameraman for walking backwards for six minutes without falling over.

I'm not sure if you ever had an accident. But I had where I rolled across the street like a ball for about 60 meters . And believe me, I was happy to wear clothing with good protectors. Because I was rolling like a ball, most impact was on my knees, elbows and shoulders ... exactly where the protectors are. And looking at the wearness at these points, I'm glad, that the impact was not directly on my knees, elbows or shoulders. Maybe worth mentioning: I only wear good protectors made of rubber, not thees cheap foam ones you have shown in the video.