You might want to cut this story out of the magazine and frame it, because for once the government has made a sensible, positive decision, which will help the bike trade!
The decision focuses on helmet and visor legislation – and the move from ECE 22.05 to 22.06 approval. We’ve written about this change extensively over recent years: the 22.06 regulations improve protection levels and are a sensible upgrade (though not necessarily a total revolution in terms of safety). 2023 was set to be a crunch year for the helmet industry as the switch to the new rules meant an end to production and homologation of 22.05 helmets, with all manufacturers moving to 22.06 designs only.
Grey area
There was a grey area in the rules, which centred around existing helmet stocks. Put simply, if a manufacturer or distributor has 22.05-approved lids in their warehouses – are they permitted to continue selling them? The ECE regulations gave fixed dates for the steps to end production and homologation of 22.05 lids but didn’t give a firm timeline for an end to legal sale by dealers of the older helmet models. Rather, it said that national authorities “may prohibit the sale of helmets and visors which do not meet the requirements of the 22.06 series of amendments”. In other words, it was up to national governments (or the EU authorities) to decide whether or not to put an end date on new 22.05 helmet sales.
The implications of a ban on 22.05 sales would have been stark: wholesalers and dealers would have been forced into a massive sell-off, with huge discounts and losses, simply to try and clear out all old stock by an end date, which could have been as early as January 2024. Any 22.05 stock left after the ban would have been scrap, unable to be legally sold to end users.
Resolution
A severe situation then. But the MCIA (Motor Cycle Industry Association) issued a member announcement last month, stating that the UK Department for Transport (DfT) will not impose an end date on 22.05 new helmet sales. That means importers, distributors and dealers will be able to run down old stocks naturally, with 22.05 sales declining as 22.06 production takes over, and without a ‘cliff-edge’ ban on sales. The announcement said: “The MCIA can confirm that a recent discussion with the DfT for clarification on the final sales of Regulation 22.05 helmets has been presented through a targeted mini consultation for an amendment to the Motor Cycles (Protective Helmets) regulations 1998.”
The planned amendment to those regulations is reasonably straightforward. “The intention behind taking this approach is to ensure that all existing helmets will continue to be permitted and to allow helmets approved to UN Regulation 22.05 to decline from the market naturally.”
According to the MCIA, “This essentially means that because there is an end-date to the production and the application of approval marks (no more can be manufactured after 3 July 2023), then the UK government (DfT) are happy to let 22.05 helmets/visors to continue to be placed onto the UK market until all stocks are depleted – essentially, there will not technically be a date for prohibition of sales of Regulation 22.05 helmets/visors in the UK. Stock of Regulation 22.05 helmets/visors can continue in the UK until no more are available.”
The amendment to the helmet regs will, according to the DfT, be published at some point this year before being made law.
The industry, perhaps unsurprisingly, welcomed the move. “It’s the correct thing to do,” said Paul Haskins, UK sales director at LS2 Helmets. “It’s fantastic news, because it was going to mean that from January, no one could sell them [22.05 helmets] – not just distributors, but dealers as well.”
And Haskins believes the repercussions could have been massive without this decision. “I don’t think dealers were actually aware, and thought they could sell forever. I was quite worried about it: if we’d got stuck with a lot of stock or dealers were stuck with a lot of stock, they were basically going to end up as hanging baskets or something! That would have put a lot of businesses in jeopardy.”
Image courtesy of Infinity Motorcycles – https://www.infinitymotorcycles.com