The United Nations (UN) sets the regulation that describes how your motorcycle helmet has to be produced and tested. UN regulation No. 22 applies to motorcycle helmets licensed to be sold as road-legal on European roads. The regulation establishes the ‘uniform provisions concerning the approval of protective helmets and their visors for drivers and passengers of motorcycles and mopeds’. The current version of the regulation is UN Regulation No. 22.06.

With regulation 22.06 in place, the following has been added to the scope of the regulation:

Modular helmets – Helmets equipped with a movable or detachable protective lower face cover, will be tested with or without chin guard in position.

Sun shields – Sun shields cannot restrain or prevent the movement of the visor. On opening the visor, the sun shield can pivot in the working position. By means of a simple movement the sun shield must be able to be moved separately from the visor. Helmets placed on the market with a sun shield shall be tested with the sun shield in working position.

Reflective stickers – In order to comply with national requirements, the helmet may be required to have reflective materials. These materials can be delivered with the helmet, with proper instructions on where and how to apply them on the helmet.

Accessories – Helmets placed on the market with accessories shall be examined to make sure the equipment has no adverse effect and that the helmet and/or visor still comply with the requirements. Testing will be done with and without the accessory and its support with particular attention to energy absorption, sharp edges and field of vision. You are not allowed to modify the helmet from its original specification as manufactured. Accessories must be fitted in accordance with the helmet manufacturer’s instructions. Only accessories tested during the type approval procedure of the helmet keep the type approval valid.

High speed particle test for visors – To make sure visors don’t shatter when hit by something hard during your ride, they shall be tested with a steel ball at 60 m/s. The visor should not fracture or deform, and the visor housing should not separate into two or more pieces, or no longer be capable of holding the visor in position.

Brain injury by rotation – An impact test method of measuring rotational acceleration is introduced, to test the impact on the brain when the helmet is twisted during an accident. To test this, the helmet will be allowed to fall, under specified angles and with a specified speed on to a rigidly mounted anvil.

Regulation 22.06 has been voted on in June 2020 and came into force from 2024. That does not necessarily mean you cannot buy a helmet approved under regulation 22.05 anymore. Regulation 22.06 says: ‘Contracting Parties applying this Regulation may prohibit the sale of helmets and visors which do not meet the requirements of the 06 series of amendments to this Regulation’.

The accepted text of UN Regulation No.22 can be found here. This document also includes all the test methods.

Regulation No. 22 requires every motorcycle helmet to bear a sticker sewn into or onto the retention system (aka: ‘the chinstrap’). This sticker shows the homologation mark, the homologation number, and the production serial number. New in regulation 22.06 is the demand to have the year of production of the helmet mentioned on the helmet.

Things to know about ECE 22 labels An ECE 22 E-Mark label is required for your helmet to be sold as road-legal on European roads. You will find the E-Mark label sewn into the chin strap of your helmet. The digits after the ‘E’ identify the country where the helmet model was tested and ECE 22 approved. 06 stands for ECE R22.06, followed by the 4-digit helmet approval number. After the hyphen (-) you will find the production serial number. The letter(s) in the middle between the two numbers shows the type approval: (J) Jet: helmet without any part to cover the lower part of the face. Open face. (NP) Jet: helmet with a detachable or movable part of that cover the lower part of the face that does not protect the chin. (P) Full face, helmet with a detachable, movable or integral (permanently fixed) part of the helmet covering the lower part of the face and intended to protect the chin. (P/J) Modular helmet, means a helmet, equipped with a movable or detachable protective lower face cover, that meets the requirements for both conditions of use with or without chin guard in position. Chin protection is only guaranteed with the lower face cover in position. Some ‘flip-front’ helmets are both ‘J’ and ‘P’ approved, meaning they are tested under the rules of both the ‘jet’ and the fully ‘protective’ type approvals. What it means to you is that those (and only those) flip-front helmets can be ridden with either the chin piece raised up or the chin piece lowered and locked in position. The main approval countries by E-mark E1: Germany E2: France E3: Italy E4: the Netherlands E5: Sweden E6: Belgium E7: Hungary E8: Czech Republic E9: Spain E10: Yugoslavia E11: United Kingdom E12: Austria E13: Luxembourg E14: Switzerland E16: Norway

Written by Wim Taal

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