It tests a sample of that model — defined impacts, at defined points on the shell, at defined speeds, with limits on what reaches the headform underneath. It records what happened in a laboratory, and it is not a statement about any particular crash.
What is being measured
A helmet is placed on an instrumented headform and dropped, or struck, against anvils of specified shapes. Sensors in the headform record what arrives. The standard sets which points on the shell are hit, at what speed, against which anvil, and how much may be transmitted before the sample fails. Other parts of the same document cover the retention system, the visor, the field of view and the labelling.
What that means for two helmets with the same mark
That both passed. It does not mean they performed identically, because the standard publishes a threshold rather than a score — a sample well inside the limit and one that barely cleared it carry the same mark. Nothing in the marking distinguishes them, and no listing can tell you which yours is.
Why the version number is worth reading
Approval standards are revised, and a revision changes what is tested rather than how strictly. Where a newer version adds a test the older one did not have, two helmets on the same shelf can be approved to different documents and both be current, because there is usually a transition period during which stock approved to the earlier version continues to be sold legally. The version is printed on the strap label with the approval.
What it does not cover at all
Fit. A helmet that is the wrong shape for a head is a helmet that moves, and nothing in an approval measures the shape of a shell against the shape of a skull. The approval is about the object; how it sits on you is about you, and it is settled by wearing it rather than by reading it.
Where to read it
On the label sewn to the retention strap, which carries the approval, its version and the country of homologation. What the document itself contains is published by the body that issues it, and that publication is where a question about a specific test belongs.
Where this page and the manufacturer’s own paperwork say different things, the paperwork wins. Every weight, shell size, armour level, approval version, viscosity grade, chain pitch, pad reference and torque figure on this page comes from the maker’s own published figures, with the unit as printed and the source named. None of it is measured here, and no figure is converted into another convention, because a converted number is a different number. And the distinction this page keeps: an approval records a test, not an outcome. It states that a sample of that model went through defined impacts, at defined points, at defined speeds, and stayed within defined limits. Two products carrying the same mark are not equivalent, the mark is not a ranking, and nothing on this page turns it into a statement about a particular crash.
Questions riders send in about this
Is a helmet with a newer approval version safer?
It was tested against a document that may include tests the earlier one did not. That is a difference in what was measured, not a measurement of the difference between two helmets, and neither version tells you what will happen in a fall.
Does a more expensive helmet pass by a wider margin?
Nothing published says so. Price on this shelf buys weight, shell count, ventilation, finish, noise, liner quality and spares availability — all of which are real and none of which is the approval.
Last reviewed 18 September 2026