The air bag vest is a personal safety device worn by some motorcyclists that has found greatest use among equestrian competitors. The device is worn over a standard padded vest and is automatically inflated by gas released from a carbon dioxide canister when a tether attached to the horse's saddle is extended during a fall.
Description and availability
The device weighs approximately two pounds and is worn over a standard protective high density foam vest. Connected by a cord to the horse's saddle, a carbon dioxide canister is punctured when the cord is extended during a fall, inflating the vest in 100 to 250 milliseconds. Unlike car air bags, the air bag vests can be repacked and reloaded for reuse with a new CO2 cartridge. Companies that manufacture the vests created them for motorcyclists as early as 1999. Point Two Air Jackets, a British manufacturer, began selling the device for horse riders starting in 2009 and the Japanese company Hit Air has a similar device, which sell for about $400 to $700 depending on the model. In the US, companies such as MotoAir-USA started to spring up, using similar technology. As of 2010, Point Two estimated that 6,000 eventing riders wore its vests, while Hit Air estimated that 10,000 of its vests were being used. The United States Team at the FEI World Equestrian Games in 2010 planned to provide riders with air bag vests.
Studies conducted by the British Transport Research Laboratory showed that the vests improved protection by 69% when worn by riders in conjunction with a standard protective vest and cut the risk of rib fractures and damage to internal organs by 20%. Studies performed by the TRL for Point Two showed a reduction exceeding 55% in the chest compression experienced while wearing the vest compared to unprotected falls, and that chest compression was cut in half of the maximum limit set by the U.S. National Highway Traffic Safety Administration for chest compression in automobile crashes. At a competition in France held in September 2009, rider Karim Florent Laghouag was able to walk away from a fall in which his horse somersaulted over a fence with his only injury a dislocated elbow. Similar types of rotational falls had resulted in the death of 13 riders in the four-year span through 2010. In 2010, British rider Oliver Townend described the vest as "the biggest step forward in the safety of our sport, ever". Townend had his horse fall on top of him while participating in the Rolex Kentucky Three Day in Lexington, Kentucky, and despite a broken sternum and four cracked ribs, credited the vest with allowing him to leave the hospital after only one day, saying that without the vest he "would be in a box or in America for a month".
Effectiveness in motorcycling
In motorcycling, Ballester et al defined the critical information for airbag efficiency assessment: the zones and levels of protection, the impacted surfaces as well as the airbag intervention time and the duration of maintained inflation of the airbag. Also, earlier work by Thollon et al analysed the effectiveness of airbag protection for reducing thoracic injuries in motorcycle accidents. However, neck protection remains an area of significant uncertainty: some manufacturers' airbags protect the neck from extreme movement in a crash, but others have shied away from neck protection. More research is needed regarding neck protection for motorcyclists.
Certification
Following a detailed research project funded by the Injured Jockeys Fund and conducted by independent test house SATRA in conjunction with the British Racehorse Authority a standard was established for the use of air bag vests by jockeys, and an amended version covering the use of air bag vests for riders across all other equestrian disciplines.
SATRA M38: February 2013 – Requirements for air-vests, for use in horse riding, intended to give protection in the event of a fall to ground
SATRA M39: February 2013 - Requirements for jockeys' body protectors additionally incorporating airbag technology.
The SATRA Standards cover ergonomics, total area covered by the air bag, impact attenuation, activation force, lanyard strength, lanyard length, inflation speed and pressures and have been adopted by most of the major air jacket manufacturers. In 2013 a specific certification was created for use of air bag vests by motorcyclists to improve the standard of mechanically operated airbag vests. The standard is EN1621/4:2013 this standard relates to all mechanically operated airbags and not electronic systems. The standard dictates inflation speed, inflation duration, inflation volume and amount of force it absorbs. In MotoGP racing, airbags have been worn since 2007 and compulsory since 2018. Japanese police motorcyclists have used lanyard-based airbags for some years. In 2019, Britain's Gloucester police became some of the first police forces to equip its riders with electronically triggered airbags. Versions of the device are also being developed for all-terrain vehicle and mountain bike riders.
