One of the most important pieces of gear you need is a helmet. There are many considerations you need to keep in mind when deciding on a helmet, the colour of the helmet being one of the most important.
In this article, I’ll explain why the colour of your helmet is so important and look specifically at the best motorcycle helmet colour for visibility.
What This Article Covers:
Helmet Colour Matters
The main purpose of your helmet is to ensure your safety in the event that you get in an accident on the road.
While the style of your helmet is also important to keep in mind when deciding on a helmet, it has a lot less to do with your overall safety than the colour of your helmet. Almost half of the motorcycle accidents that occur each year happen because the biker wasn’t visible to the other driver.
When it comes to visibility, next to the colour of your motorcycle itself, the colour of your helmet is one of the most important factors. In this regard, it all comes down to contrast.
The more the colour of your motorcycle and your helmet stand out from the backdrop and, specifically, the colour of the road, the more visible you are to other drivers on the road. For this reason, you want to look at colours that contrast the colours black and grey the most.
Best Motorcycle Helmet Colour for Visibility
Now that it’s established exactly why the colour of your helmet is such a crucial consideration when you’re buying a helmet, it’s time to look at the best motorcycle helmet colour for visibility.
White
Of all the helmet colours on the market, white is by far the safest. Looking back at what I said earlier with regards to the principles of visibility and contrast, this only makes sense. White is the furthest colour from black on the colour wheel, so it’s regarded as the most visible of all helmet colours.
This is because white reflects the most sunlight and stands out the most from any other colours in the scenery. Studies have shown that white helmets have a 24% reduced risk of being involved in an accident.
Black
Although black may be the most stylish colour on the market and is, as a result, the most popular, it’s also the most dangerous helmet colour to wear.
In comparison with white, black helmets and any similarly dark colours (e.g. grey) blend into the backdrop of the road and scenery. Not only do they not stand out from the road, but they reflect the least amount of sunlight out of all helmet colours. This is especially so if your helmet is matte.
Essentially, if you decide on black as your colour of choice, you’re putting emphasis on your appearance over your safety. This is something that I highly advocate against.
Other Colours
Black and white are the two most popular helmet colours on the market. That being said, there are plenty of other colours that motorcycle helmets come in. So let’s take a look at some of the other colours that you might want to choose.
Red
When it comes to motorcycle helmet colour, we always advise our customers to stay away from reddish colours, especially dark reds.
Red has a low wavelength and so, once lighting conditions start to dim, red is one of the first colours that our eyes are incapable of seeing.
If you like going for night rides or travel often at night, red and black are the two colours you should really avoid. That being said, some brighter or neon shades of red are capable of withstanding the perils of poor lighting conditions. You can also look for reflective colours that will show up when a car’s lights or streetlamp hits it.
With regards to the brighter shades of red, studies have shown these helmets have a 20% reduced risk of being involved in an accident.
Yellow and Orange
Next to white, yellow and orange are two of the most visible colours on the market. These colours both scream “attention” at your fellow driver and so they’ll always be easy to notice on the road. They’re commonly associated with warning and hazard signs, so you can communicate with others on the road.
In addition to this, they’re also the most visible colours in all weather and light conditions. This gives them a slight edge above white as the most visible motorcycle helmet colour in these conditions.
Studies have shown that yellow and orange helmets are 21% less likely to be involved in an accident, placing them above most other colours, but just below white overall.
Green
Green is a striking colour, so it may come as a shock to you to hear that it’s regarded as one of the least visible helmet colours on the market. This is, however, dependent on where you ride most of the time.
Most open roads are surrounded by forms of greenery, be it grass, crop fields, or trees. As such, when you take the principle of contrast into account, green’s downfall as a motorcycle helmet becomes more obvious. It fails to stand out amongst the greenery in the backdrop.
However, contrast is dependent on the backdrop and so the scenery around you has a significant impact on the visibility of this colour, and that of any colour for that matter.
Blue and Purple
Similar to red, both these colours have the potential to be dark colours and so, if your helmet is a dark shade of either purple or blue, you run the risk of reduced visibility on the road, especially at night and in bad weather conditions.
However, as mentioned in regards to red helmets, if you use a brighter, luminescent shade of these colours, their visibility increases significantly. Brighter purple or blue helmets have a 21% reduced risk of being involved in an accident.
Other Considerations to Colour
While the colour of your helmet is certainly an important factor to keep in mind when looking for a new helmet, it’s far from the only thing you should be looking at.
Fortunately, most helmet manufacturers offer their helmets in more than one colour. This means that you should nail down the other features of your helmet first, and choose the most visible design after.
With regards to these other considerations, let’s take a look at what to look for when buying a motorcycle helmet.
Safety
When you’re choosing your helmet, you should always ask which motorcycle helmet is safest. Although colour and safety go hand-in-hand, they should be seen as separate, yet equally important.
It’s important that we reiterate that the primary purpose of a helmet is to keep you safe in an accident. For this reason, the safety rating of a helmet should be your other primary concern when it comes to choosing a helmet, not how cool it looks.
Price
We always say that you cannot put a price on safety. The price of a helmet is always a good indicator of the quality of the helmet. If a helmet is on the expensive side, there’s probably a good reason for it.
Expensive helmets can be worth it if you’re getting extra safety features out of them. Don’t be fooled by brands looking for more money simply because they’re selling you an ‘exclusive’ product that doesn’t have any benefit.
Knowing exactly how much you should pay for a motorcycle helmet is a tough nut to crack. Paying a hefty sum for a decent helmet can be painful at first, but trust us, if you’re ever involved in an accident (God forbid, of course) you’ll be grateful you settled for a more expensive option.
Style
There are many different styles and designs of helmets. People want to know if open-face helmets are safe, or if they should settle on a cruiser helmet instead. In short, if you’re looking at a helmet you’re already on the right path.
That being said if you’re going to buy a helmet we advise always going for full-face motorcycle helmets. Think of it like this, the more helmet there is, the more of your head is going to be protected in the event of an accident.
Solid or Pattern
Besides the colour, the pattern on your helmet is just as important.
I always recommend sticking to a helmet that is a single, solid colour in this regard. This is because if your helmet uses a number of colours and patterns, it may actually serve to camouflage you in the backdrop rather than make you stand out.
For this reason, it generally doesn’t matter how many colours you use or how bright the colours are, the busier your helmet, the less visible it is.
Finish
In addition to the pattern on your helmet, the finish also has a huge impact on its visibility.
As mentioned briefly earlier, a matte finish helmet absorbs sunlight rather than reflecting it. This decreases the overall visibility of your helmet no matter what colour it is.
I recommend getting a gloss-finished helmet. This ensures your helmet reflects as much sunlight as possible, in turn making sure that you are always visible to other drivers on the road.
Conclusion
We’re sure that you’ll have no problem choosing a motorcycle helmet with the best colour for visibility in the future. While you might want to tend towards something you think looks nice, you want to focus on safety first. No one looks good in the hospital.
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