Email us on +INTRODUCTION
What clothing do you wear when you ride a motorcycle? What is it that sits between you and the elements or – if the worst happens – you and the hard, abrasive road surface? Are you an advocate of “All the Gear, All The Time” (ATGATT), or do you prefer fashion over function?
The choice is yours – and long may that remain the case (although recent events suggest the possibility it might not always be so). What this article is actually intended to do is to help you to understand how the development of European Standards for motorcyclists’ protective clothing took place and, read in conjunction with other information on this web site, to inform you so that you can make a considered choice when you next buy riding kit.
The Personal Protective Equipment Directive became an active part of UK law on 30th June 1995. Since that date, suppliers of protective clothing and equipment “designed to be worn or held by an individual for protection against one or more health and safety hazards” (the Directive’s definition of PPE) have been required to categorise their products as PPE, and to CE mark them by self-certification or through independent, third-party accreditation by test facilities known as “European notified Bodies”, or to classify them as non-protective.
This situation in general will not change with the passing of the Personal Protective Equipment Regulation, on 9th March 2016; a higher status of legislation; although following widespread abuses by the motorcycle clothing industry for the past 20 years, legislators and European Parliamentarians have now taken steps to take the choice of how to categorise their products out of the hands of the motorcycle clothing industry and have stated that from 21st April 2018, when the PPE Regulation comes into force, all items of motorcyclists’ clothing and equipment will be legally defined as PPE.
Motorcycle clothing was not originally going to fall within the scope of the legislation; however, following the collapse of the ACU Standard for racewear (more on which later), a meeting took place between Dr Garth Willson and a Mr Petrovich, of the European Commission, in which the latter was convinced that motorcyclists would benefit from the availability of products manufactured to a European Standard. The European Standards agency CEN (Comité Européene de Normalisation) convened a technical subcommittee with the long title of CEN/TC 162/WG9 – or “WG9” – in order to develop these standards.
In 1997, EN 1621-1 was published (since updated as EN 1621-1:2012), and motorcyclists will be familiar with this, because limb joint impact protectors fitted to garments are often claimed to meet this requirement (in fact no protector should be marketed if it does not conform to this standard and there has been at least one criminal prosecution – R. vs Anhil Vedhra – for doing so).
European standard EN 1621-2, which covers back protectors, has similarly been accepted globally as the de facto International standard. Finally, there are the garment, glove and footwear standards: EN 13595 Parts 1 – 4, EN 13594 and EN 13634 respectively, along with standards for chest protectors and body-worn airbags (EN 1621-3 and EN 1621-4, respectively) plus EN 14021 for Moto-X stone shields.
In this article, we will be looking at the development and application of the CEN standards for motorcycle clothing, their background and some of the controversy that blighted and slowed their original delivery. We’ll also come up to date with how the new PPE Regulation and changes to the clothing standards might affect you as a consumer and as a rider.
In 1997, EN 1621-1 was published (since updated as EN 1621-1:2012), and motorcyclists will be familiar with this, because limb joint impact protectors fitted to garments are often claimed to meet this requirement (in fact no protector should be marketed if it does not conform to this standard and there has been at least one criminal prosecution – R. vs Anhil Vedhra – for doing so).
European standard EN 1621-2, which covers back protectors, has similarly been accepted globally as the de facto International standard. Finally, there are the garment, glove and footwear standards: EN 13595 Parts 1 – 4, EN 13594 and EN 13634 respectively, along with standards for chest protectors and body-worn airbags (EN 1621-3 and EN 1621-4, respectively) plus EN 14021 for Moto-X stone shields.
In this article, we will be looking at the development and application of the CEN standards for motorcycle clothing, their background and some of the controversy that blighted and slowed their original delivery. We’ll also come up to date with how the new PPE Regulation and changes to the clothing standards might affect you as a consumer and as a rider.
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