The face shield choice of the X3 Helmet can improve intended safety purposes.

  • Helmets are widely accepted to be protective gear for motorcyclists, and can even be lifesaving. In fact, helmets are of record to be lifesaving in 28 percent of all motorcycle accidents. Their use is now legally required by all motorcyclists in 24 U.S. states and with variations in other states.
  • This concern for motorcycle safety has brought about a dramatic reduction in motorbike accidents. Only approximately 140,000 motorcycle accidents occur annually, which is less than half that occurred in the previous decade despite the fact that more people ride motorcycles today.
  • Despite the reduction in accidents, however, the number of deaths and injuries due to motorcycle accidents has somehow increased. In fact, the number of deaths by motorcycle accidents increased by almost eight percent every year for the past five years. While motorcycles only make up two percent of all registered vehicles, they are now responsible for five percent of all vehicle fatalities on U.S. highways. Motorcyclists are three times more likely to be injured in accidents than automobile users, and are 16 times more likely to die from such accidents.
  • What makes this fatality increase stand out most is that 49 percent of these accidents do not involve other vehicles and occur with just the single motorcycle. And the major cause of these one-motorcycle accidents? Reduced vision capabilities.
  • Face shields can protect motorcyclists from the insects and other debris with which they make contact while riding. Contact with such debris directly on the face and near or into the eyes impairs and can even completely block one’s vision, and face shields can effectively prevent such occurrence.
  • These same face shields can also impair vision, however, and even due to the same circumstances. Just as auto windshields can be blocked by the cluttering collection of insects and debris, so can helmet face shields. Even worse, the compound curves of face shields can distort vision and can disarrange the arc and radius of infiltrating light. Thus, bright sunlight, streetlights and even moonbeams can interfere with the vision of helmet wearers.
  • The X3 Helmet offers solutions to the problems within these alternating safety measures by allowing safety alternatives. When a rider is at risk to facial collision with particles and debris within the air, he or she can simply order the face guard to be lowered to provide protection. When the face guard collects too many of such debris that the wearer’s vision is blocked, the wearer can simply order the face guard up again. And should the face guard be distorting received light, the X3 Helmet user can prevent such sight impairment upon a simple oral order.

The X3 Helmet allows this needed face guard transition in the safest way possible.
  • Motorcycle drivers need both hands to operate their vehicles. With clutch in left and throttle in right, no motorcycle rider can safely remove or alter their grips while riding.
  • While reduced vision capabilities is the main cause of one-motorcycle accidents and fatalities, improper hand control upon the handlebars follows as a close second.
  • This circumstance can prevent motorcycle operators from removing debris from about their face and eyes, or from properly cleaning their face guards. Also, these riders could not at any time remove a face guard while operating the motorcycles. As a result, cycle riders must stop and delay their journeys to correct these circumstances or be faced with immediate danger.
  • The X3 Helmet allows this needed correction to vision impairment to be done instantly and without interfering with operation of the motorcycle. With the X3 Helmet, cycle riders can simply order the face guard to move up or down without stopping their movement and while retaining needed gripping of both hands upon the motorcycle controls.

The X3 Helmet can offer its needed benefits to a continuously growing product field with a continuously growing consumer base.
  • The sales of new motorcycles have continually increased for the past eight years, and by leaps and bounds, and used motorbikes also continue to rise in sales. Today, there are over 6.5 million motorcycles (both on- and off-road cycles) in use in the U.S.
  • This consumer group has also increased, and in similar categories of numbers and dollars. The average income of motorcyclists has not only increased by one-third in the past 10 years, but is actually over 20 percent higher than the national average.
  • This above-average income group doesn’t hesitate to spend their money on their cycling habit. For example, $1.2 billion is spent annually by these consumers on motorcycle accessories and over $1.2 billion on related apparel, including helmets.
  • By offering needed safety improvements in a needed convenient format, the X3 Helmet is sure to be of appeal to this rapidly-growing, high-income and high-spending consumer group.

Sources: Motorcycle Industry Council, National Highway Traffic Safety Administration, National Agenda for Motorcycle Safety, U.S. Bureau of the Census, and Discover Today’s Motorcycling.

 

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