Helmets: Selection matters

Matthew Judson, JSP’s technical director, explains: "Many workers and health and safety officers mistakenly think that climbing helmets are suitable for wear on scaffolding, because if the helmets are hit by a falling object they are held on the head by the chinstrap. However, wearing these helmets can be dangerous. The chinstrap on industrial safety helmets is designed to break and the helmet to come off if the person should fall and become caught up by the helmet, causing less harm to the worker.” 

JSP says that its EVOLite Skyworker is an industrial safety helmet that is certified to climbing helmet standard EN12492 and to EN397. The company has added features such as side impact protection to the helmet so that it also performs to the climbing helmet standard and can be used for both purposes.

There are three basic differences between climbing helmets and industrial safety helmets:

•  The amount of the load passed to the wearer’s neck used in testing. When a 5kg flat striker is dropped from 2m onto the top of a climbing helmet, the force through the neck must not exceed 10kilonewton (kN); a 5kg hemispherical striker dropped from 2m onto a high performance industrial helmet is only allowed a maximum load of 5kN.

•  Industrial safety helmets have deliberately breakable chinstraps to avoid strangulation.

•  Climbing helmets are allowed larger ventilation holes, which could be penetrated by falling objects, such as a piece of metal, chisel or screwdriver.

Matthew adds: "JSP advises people to determine what the risk is, assess it, and then choose the right product for the right risk environment. It is all about understanding the differences between leisure and industrial safety helmets and choosing a product, such as JSP’s Skyworker, that will be safe for use in the workplace as well as for climbing.”