That's exactly what other manufacturers will be doing. Even car manufacturers will buy another manufacturers product, straight off the forecourt, road test it, tear it down, analyse it in fine detail, cost it out, etc, etc. They spend millions every year on research and development of their own products and you honestly think Ford would publish all this data and hand it over to General Motors for free? The same goes for any consumer product.

You're talking about access to the full test results. The basics in layman's terms are freely available on Arai's website if you're interested. They're one of the few to disclose even the basics, even if it is just for marketing reasons. Are you a materials engineer or a specialist in destructive testing? I did my fair share of this kind of work at technical college and university and trust me, the detailed results don't make light reading. The average buyer will barely understand what they're looking at anyway.

Yes, Arai's are expensive and is the reason I have a Nolan at present. I prefer to spend a little less so I can afford to replace it more often.

If anyone, either a magazine or a company is pushing for greater safety standards and forcing others to raise their game, it will push all the crap off the market. In which case, I fully agree with you that this is great news for everyone, except for those who are dead set on buying a sub £50 helmet from Aldi's that is.

I've got to ask the question though, what's the point in starting a topic asking for honest opinions on Nitro helmets if you're just going to shout everyone down because their opinion differs from yours? My opinion is simply that they lack the longevity of products from more established manufacturers and fog up far too easily. However, I still use mine at the kart track but would not take it out on the road due to degradation of the foam lining. You say you're an ex-bike cop so I'm sure you will be all too familiar with the reasons of why you shouldn't use ill-fitting helmets.

One thing's for sure, companies who have been in the business as long as Arai, AGV, Shoei, etc, etc, know how to make a better product than any Chinese upstart. Let's be honest, they can't even make a half-decent copy of Honda's ancient CG125.

At the end of the day, you don't get anything for free. Even AGV make their lower priced helmets outside of Italy using cheaper labour, so if you've bought what looks like a £200 lid for £80, you know corners have been cut somewhere, not just in labour costs but in development, production or materials and I believe this will show when the NCAP-style rating is implemented.