Has anyone ever seen superbike or MotoGP riders wear one? I do not think I have. It makes me wonder about the applicability to “road racing”. We have impacts that primarily result in flexing of neck. Motocross has much greater chance of significant impact straight down the spine. Do the motocross focused neck braces protect best against those with less protection or compromise in some cases of bending type trauma
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This is actually a very good point. The closest motorcycle crash, kinematically, to a kart crash that I can imagine would be falling off a bike in MotoGP/Road Racing. They go at higher speeds, but for them it’s one lesser impact (relative to MX) followed by sliding along the ground compared to one large impact coming to a full stop in MX.
Most MotoGP riders also do not wear a neck brace. Their thinking is that they do not want a sharp edge to catch on something and twist them in a way that may cause further injury. Here is a quora question answered by the president of Ultimate Motorcycle Magazine that gives a bit of detail on it.
A neck brace kind of works against the kinesiology & physical positioning that a sportbike rider assumes. However, the Dainese “Smart Jacket” is an airbag style vest that stays tucked out of the way & then deploys & inflates when an eminent crash event is detected (assuming inertia detection):
Note the configuration that deploys to impose & restrict range of motion about the neck & consistent with the neck brace concept, which probably isn’t by coincidence. This looks like the “street” version; they also have a race version, which I suspect is bulkier when deployed.
I have seen the air suit. I am not sure I think it is consistent with neck brace. Prior to these, they were not wearing neck brace. These did not replace the neck brace. There must be some reason they were not willing wear the neck brace but are willing to wear this
My 2 cents
I have a Leatt neck brace, I have worn it. It now sits atop my wardrobe.
I have read most of the threads on KP about neck braces and have chosen not to wear it mostly due to the unproven nature of them.
My biggest concern is the potential of a fulcrum point putting “unnatural” strain on the neck itself. In my opinion the most likely accidents in a Kart is a sudden deceleration, pulling the helmet in any direction, either by hitting a barrier, or another kart. This type of accident would cause a hyperextension and combining the extra weight of the helmet with a possible fulcrum point doesn’t sit right with me.
The type of accident where the neck is compressed straight downwards into what would be a neck brace to prevent a compression of the spine type injury seem to be exceedingly rare.
However an accident where the neck is hyperextended due to sudden deceleration would seem to be way more common. Adding a fulcrum point between a helmet and neck brace to this sort of injury frankly scares me.
The FIA (or similar body) really needs to put in some decent research into the effectiveness or liability of wearing a neck brace. The association I race with “recommends” the use of neck braces in Cadet classes, which is an interesting stance given the untested nature of neck braces.
Like I said, I think a neck brace isn’t complimentary to riding a sportbike due to the riding position; it seems to work better with more upright torso positioning.
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FWIW, There’s a bit of test of data in this if anyone’s interested:
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Maybe that is the case. The one article above identified a primary concern of it causing a catch point could cause a head twist when sliding. That is a concern we might share. I have been upside down twice. One had significant sliding. Enough that I still have scars on both knees and left elbow
First, an apology. I did not realize that KartPulse had an existing 83 post discussion (from 2017 to 2019) on “Thoughts on neck braces for karting” found under the General Karting Forum. I read all 83 before adding this post to the current discussion.
I will try to boil my comments down by first eliminating all other braces.
I have focused on the Leatt KART neck brace because it makes the most sense to me and because I was wearing one in my 50 mph barrel roll flip (more on the relevance of that later). The only other brace I would personally consider is Valhalla’s 360 Plus, also designed for karting
I believe the Great Lakes EMS study on neck braces in motocross is valuable. I assume (but do not know) that all neck braces they referenced were rigid. Sorting out accidents with or without a neck brace, they used 2 filters: (1) Injuries to the cervical spine or to the clavicle ONLY. Then, (2) injuries requiring, as a minimum, medical evacuation. With those filters in place, I believe their numbers are significant.
I do not understand the reference to whether or not motocross riders or kart drivers chose to wear or not to wear a neck brace. Are there many, many riders/drivers who were not wearing neck braces and who walked away from accidents? Absolutely. The EMS paper simply covers the ones who did not.
I do not understand the reference to a fulcrum when wearing the Leatt brace; it is specifically designed to eliminate that risk.
From their User Manual:
“The design rational behind the Leatt-Brace is to bring the head to a controlled stop. This is achieved by providing a padded rigid structure that acts as an alternative load path for neck forces. Helmet impacts otherwise transmitted from the helmet to skull and then to the neck are re-directed from the helmet to the brace to other body structures in a safe way. The design of the Leatt-Brace prevents the helmet/head from projecting over the brace and therefore prevents a fulcrum action, which has been documented in literature pertaining to the use of collar devices.”
From the post by LJ Cordony, The Leatt video documents their approach to testing in detail. I believe that this information, coupled with the Great Lakes EMS study on motocross accidents, and detailed anecdotes on kart accidents will be the best information available until long after I hang up my helmet (and Leatt neck brace).
To close the discussion from my standpoint only, my flip happened so fast that I didn’t realize I had been in an accident until the last few inches of skidding in the hard pan on the side of the track. Looking at the damage to the kart as well as to my helmet, Leatt neck brace, and race suit, my (protected) head took a huge, instantaneous hit to the left side – a combined load of about 375 lbs. with a forward velocity just short of 50 mph plus a rotating velocity (barrel roll) of X.
Because of my age, I work out hard, including strengthening my neck (my dress shirt collar has gone from 15 1/2" to 16"). But there is no way that my extra conditioning could have done anything to prevent a neck injury considering the forces involved (as shown by helmet skid mark on the track surface).
I realize that we have beat this subject to death, at least with the information available, and that we will each make our own decision on neck braces going forward. But I do not want to close without saying “thank you” to all of those who wished me well after my flip. May we all be safe.
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Similarly my flip happened so fast I did not know what happened. I remember sliding and wanting to roll and couldn’t. I later realized that was because the kart was on top of me. It was an older style body work that covered the wheel some. My foot got caught between it and wheel. They had to remove the wheel to get the kart off me.
Damage to my kart was bent axle, broken rim, cracked seat, bent steering wheel, and broken gauge. There may be more. I do not remember, it was 20 years ago. Damage to me was bruise on chest the size of steering wheel. Holes in both knees, and left elbow. Outside half of left arm was bruised from elbow to wrist. The only time I have seen similar is when nurse messed up and caused bleeding on arm giving blood once. So I guess some bleeding in the arm. I was sore all over. I was “only” 35 or so.
I did not have anything more than a neck role. I do think the Leatt is probably a good device. Like others I just caution the antidotal evidence and the action bias people seem to have. I also wish there was some independent testing. Of course someone has to lead the way. The HANS came first, then competitors and independent testing. Hopefully neck brace testing can come before serious injury drives the need. Unfortunately usually a high profile injury has to happen first. I think the testing Leatt has done is great. But it is impossible for them to unbias. I am skeptical of how succesfully their product can be at not causing a fulcrum point. There testing definitely does not address the catch and twist your neck concern described by MotoGP riders. While that is much less of an issue for us, it would be nice to understand that risk.
And we are still doing this because… 
I knew I was hooked when two weeks later in a borrowed kart (because mine was still out of service) I was behind the same guy in the same corner and into my helmet I said “Rock and Roll”
PS. The wreck was 100% my fault. Also a big learning moment about passing. Luckily the other guy got far less damage
The reason it’s important to know the number of people wearing the brace is because you can’t make any conclusion from the data gathered. Here’s why
The study states:
Over the course of the 10-year study, there were 239 recorded cases of Critical Cervical Spine injuries without a neck brace, and 26 with a neck brace.
So we have a total of 262 Cervical Spine Injuries. So 9.9% of Cervical Spine Injuires were from people wearing a neck brace.
Now there’s a mountain of possible confounding variables that in a proper study would have to be taken into account, but let’s say, for arguments sake, that everything else is equal. That means everyone who went to the ambulance was of the same ability, same track, same track conditions, same competition type, same accident type etc… The only difference was whether they wore a brace or not.
If over that period 9.9% of people wore a neck brace then what the data tells us is there is no difference in risk between wearing one, or not, with regard to a Cervical Spine Injury. If 5% wore one over that time period then we’d see that you a 2x more likely to get a Cervical Spine Injury wearing one. If 20% wore won you’d 50% less likely to get a Cervical Spine Injury.
This is why it is ABSOLUTELY critical to know the full data of how many riders wear neck braces in general. Without it the study is categorically not significant, and borderline negligent.
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But it is my reading of the complete report that 3803 were wearing a neck brace (with 26 injuries as defined in my prior post) and 4726 were not wearing a brace (with 239 injuries, again as defined above). You are correct if your point is that there may be umpteen accidents where there were head (and, thus, neck) involvement and the riders without neck braces walked away. Same could be said for riders with neck braces. The Great Lakes EMS study focused only on a certain level of injuries as their filter. Seems like a reasonable approach to me.
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Those are only the people that showed up to the ambulance. We don’t know what the overall usage rates of neck braces are. If 10% of all riders showing up to the track wear a neck brace, then we’re not seeing a difference in safety between neck braces or not. The data here has to have a lot of assumptions made about surrounding information on the drivers to draw a conclusion, which is dangerous when trying to pull conclusions from a dataset.
I find these neck brace debates to be pretty tired.
Many big series around here have gone and removed neck brace mandates. Would be interesting to see if there have been an increase in injuries since the removal of that requirement. I would bet not.
If you feel safer with one, wear it. If you don’t want to wear one and aren’t required to, don’t. I don’t see what the big deal is. I always wore one when required and didn’t when it wasn’t required.
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Yeah it tends to get heated.
Quick cleanup of posts here… let’s stick to brace discussion…
You are correct in doing so.
My apologies.
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It’s all good. ###t happens
Same! I do, however, have a special neck brace for those times it’s required. 
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