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Legislative Assembly for the ACT: 1997 Week 13 Hansard (4 December) . . Page.. 4689 ..

6.1.4 Types of helmets

In general, two types of helmet exist: a rigid-shell and a soft material design. The latter is the main type proposed for football in this country.

6.1.5 Rigid-shell helmets

The hard outer shell protects the head by distributing the impact loads over a larger area including the inner liner of the helmet and the head. The shells are made o fibreglass or injection moulded plastic. The inner liner of the helmet is usually some form of polystyrene (EPS) or polypropylene, both of which are available in various densities and thicknesses. In sports such as Australian football, the rugby codes and cable and potentially injurious to the other soccer, rigid helmets are impracticable and potentially injurious to the other participants.

6.1.6 Soft head protectors and scrum caps

Soft head protector helmets are usually a one-piece moulded structure composed of polypropylene of sufficient density and resilience to attenuate the impact and reduce the force of a blow transmitted to the brain. These are unsuitable for use in soccer because the ball is `headed'. A scrum cap or a headband without reinforcement may be worn to protect against soft tissue injury in rugby. Taping of the ears to prevent cauliflower ear injury is a common practice in rugby.

6.1.7 The effectiveness of helmets

There is no Australian standard at the present rime for soft head protectors in sports other than cycling, horse riding and motor sports.

There are a number of limitations with testing systems:

(a) Acceptance of recognised peak impact and duration of impact loads that result in injury;

(b) Different methodologies in use;

(c) Quality and reliability of testing laboratories;

(d) The use of motor vehicle injury models as a surrogate for sport-related head injury;

(e) Understanding and agreement as to what is an acceptable and safe impact load to the brain. The acceptance that a 400-600 C load may be a `survivable' head injury does not mean that brain injury will be necessarily reduced since the helmets' impact tolerance may far exceed this;

(f) The extrapolation of laboratory results to the practical situation where other factors including weather, impact speed, surface, number of impacts, helmet fit and helmet deterioration may influence the protective capability of the helmet; and

(g) The requirement of the helmet to withstand multiple repetitive impacts.

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