We were recently looking at specific risks to young motorcyclists for the National Young Riders Forum. I have a friend who is now a Consultant Surgeon, but spent much of his early career in the NHS in A&E.
I asked him about typical motorcycle injuries and for advice.
His main concern were fatalities and serious life changing spinal injuries, basically because most other injuries he could fix.
I then started looking at neck braces, and was given an airvest with an inflatable collar, which I’ve been wearing.
Many racers and trackday riders are now starting to wear them, with one of our young stars Joe Woodward inadvertently testing his out several times without injury
My latest helmet came with a separate inflatable collar which looks like a pillow for aircraft passengers, and no instructions.
We’re now starting to see more designs coming onto the market, but not all are CE approved.
Doing some more research, I found this piece of research below from Imperial College. Worryingly, it appears some collars can actually increase the risk of neck injuries, so take care when buying a brace.
MX neck braces have been around for a while and there is evidence of how effective they can be, it’s probably the new collars for road or track riders that need to be properly assessed.
‘The results show that using such devices may increase the neck forces and the stress level in the cervical spine and consequently can increase the risk of neck injury. The results show that the design of such devices requires better understanding of mechanisms of neck injury mitigation.‘
British Superbike School 