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Mark Hinchliffe·
Gear/accessoriesPantsGloves
··5 Comments·2 min read

Gloves and jeans fail safety tests

Motorcycle gloves and jeans have once again scored a big fail in the independent Australian MotoCAP safety ratings while the jeans scored well for thermal comfort.

The latest round of testing includes five pair of jeans and four gloves.

Only one set of gloves scored two safety stars, while the rest scored just one.

It follows August results for seven pairs of leather and textile motorcycles gloves which also recorded a fail in the MotoCAP safety ratings.

The MotoCAP website now lists 47 pairs of gloves in its list of 144 products tested and rated.

So far, only one pair of gloves, The Ducati Corse C3, has rated a full five stars.

Click here for the full results.

Comfy jeans

All five pairs of jeans tested have scored either three or four stars out of five for thermal comfort, which is an improvement in this category compared with previous releases.

The highest overall performing pair of jeans is the Draggin Jeans Twista jeans, which scored four out five stars for thermal comfort.

kevlar jeans
Draggin Twista jeans

While thermal comfort was good, safety was another fail.

Twista scored two out of five stars for protection, while of the other jeans tested, three scored one star for safety and one scored only half a star.

MotoCAP has now tested 41 pairs of jeans.

Click here for the full jeans results.

No comfort ratings

The world’s first safety and comfort ratings system for motorcycle clothing provides comfort ratings for thermal comfort and waterproofing on jackets and pants, but not gloves.

That is despite some of the gloves tested having perforations for airflow.

It also comes as the latest Canstar Blue customer satisfaction research found Baby Boomers are more likely to choose comfortable motorcycle gloves while Millennial riders buy for style.

Transport for NSW says that to measure for comfort a large square of fabric must be obtained.

“There is not enough material in a glove to obtain a sample for the thermal comfort measure,” they say.

However, they do test for waterproofing and three pairs of gloves were tested because they were advertised as having this feature.

The highest performing pair are the DriRider Apex 2 unisex gloves, which received a score of eight out of ten for water resistance.

Transport for NSW says there has been “interest from some manufacturers to have their items rated”.

However, all gear rated so far has been obtained through a secretive buying system to guarantee integrity.

Click here to find out how products are selected for rating in secret.

  • MotoCAP is a partnership between Transport for NSW, State Insurance Regulatory Authority (SIRA), VicRoads, Transport Accident Commission (TAC), Royal Automobile Club of Victoria (RACV), Department of Transport and Main Roads (TMR), Motor Accident Insurance Commission (MAIC), Lifetime Support Authority (LSA), Western Australian Police: Road Safety Commission, Department of State Growth, Insurance Australia Group (IAG), Australian Motorcycle Council and Accident Compensation Corporation in New Zealand.
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Mark Hinchliffe
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5 Comments

  2. One can only hope that these rating and consumer pressure will cause manufacturers to raise their game. Many have been running under false colours for a long time.
    I for one are referring to them before making new purchases

  3. Having two pairs of Draggin Jeans (thought not the model tested) I thought to myself, hang on, my jeans aren’t as safe as I thought they were? Then I went to the test results and saw the reason. Bad testing.
    Impact protection was marked as Poor because the jeans, while having pockets for impact protectors, wasn’t supplied with them. So why rate them impact performance then? And the abrasion testing doesn’t seem to have weighted results against likely abrasion risk. The testing also clearly states that water resistance was not tested because the product was not advertised as water resistant. Well, they’re not advertised as impact resistant either, yet were rated on that.
    The one glove report I bothered to look at seems equally flawed. How do you get abrasion timings for a material that doesn’t have any coverage?
    Sorry, but I won’t be looking to MotoCAP for any reliable information on safety.

  4. MotoCAP is a (welcome) disaster for motorcycle “safety” wear manufacturers. Most products are being shown to be pretty much useless More power to ’em. A great Aussie initiative and that lady (can’t remember her name) who was instrumental in getting MotoCAP up and running is to be congratulated. A world first which will be shaking things up big time.

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