While some Australian manufactures welcome the new star ratings, others do not want these minimum standards. “As has happened in Europe, many manufacturers don’t want the standard because most of their products don’t reach any standards” Draggin Jeans sales manager Will Cope says.
Testing has shown that some items of protection clearly perform and protect much better than others do. This includes leather, jean and textiles. It is a well known thought that leather has the best protection whilst textile and jean is not the best, but testing that was conducted at Deakin University by Dr Chris Hurren shows that this is not true.
Better yet, not only is the protection of the rider taken into consideration for this new star rating, local climates, road conditions and terrains that we have here in Australia will be taken into consideration in order to conduct the proper testing to receive the best results.
“Within 12-18 months we’ll have a strong set of information available that we’ll be able to share with motorcyclists and manufacturers. This will allow us to build a body of evidence around what sort of clothing is actually going to provide benefits and how we would categorise that clothing in order for there to be some objective star rating of the qualities of that clothing, be it gloves, pants or jackets” says Bernard Carlon who is the Executive Director for the Centre for Road Safety.
This will be a life changer. It will level the playing field when it comes to protective gear and give everyone an opportunity to protect themselves and give the rider the knowledge and power to choose the appropriate gear.