Yeah, I was watching that video not too long ago while reading up on the Berik/Arlen Ness suits and remember seeing his head hit the side temple repeatedly while on the grass.
Arai themselves replied to the "poor" side impact sharp tests, discussing the supposed "X" impact area, which is around the eye line (lower temple). After reading it, please take it with a grain of salt:
http://whyarai.co.uk/sharp.php
Always tradeoffs I suppose, and they are the first to admit that. Bravo. Food for thought is, that some riders have longer necks than others, and to say that the shoulder will always protect this area of the head from hitting the ground or another hard object (vehicle frame, etc) is perhaps optimistic. Arai defend this weaker part of the helmet, claiming that it is designed thinner because they believe it is impacted fewer times than the other areas. Arai's UK distributer themselves then say they COULD make it stronger, but don't want to at the cost of negatively affecting x and y.. This here is where I start to question their philosophy about being better than everyone else. If you read up their whole spiel about the Arai Difference, they themselves talk about designing helmets for every day use (not just the race track, where your lower, side temple is most likely going to be protected by your shoulder as you hit the ground like Nakano) that exceed safety standards without cutting corners.
A german helmet study displayed percentages of impacts locations to occur in a supposed real world helmet impact shown here:
In the end, it's becoming harder and harder to justify Arai's inflated price tags all in the name of comfort and safety. Their whole standpoint on helmet design and marketing comes into question. While I'll be the first to admit that Sharp's website isn't the bible on helmet purchasing, what I like about SHARP testing is that they try to do things different than the "minimum" snell or ece or whatever testing everyone tries to "meet". They try to inform helmet buyers about the importance of a well fitting helmet, as well as attempt to create a comparison among different brands that more than likely meet the same or similar safety standards. Afterall, just because a car has a set of bumpers, or a helmet meets such and such safety requirement in order to be sold and worn by a rider by law, it doesn't necessarily mean a person or object within the protective device is immune from everything.
Some riders will continue to wear the bare minimum because they are required to do so by law, while others will attempt to find the "best".
