Temporary suspension of acceptance of mail to the United States

There was chatter about this in one of the NYC subreddits over the weekend.

Apparently ending the de minimus exemption is closing the grey market for e.g. sunscreen; places that used to sell Japanese sunscreens on American shelves no longer are.

There's a frustratingly long list of goods that the US decided to put requirements on in previous generations, and then stopped maintaining. Sunscreen is one; other countries have invented sunscreens that feel better on your skin than the old styles, but aren't yet approved in the US. Motorcycle helmets are another. You may have seen the MIPS system - the yellow slipliner that's become popular in bicycle helmets. Scientists have realized that rotational impact leads to concussions and similar brain damage, but prior helmets only protected against naive impacts. Europe now requires helmets to protect against rotational damage. The US requires that manufacturers self-assert that they meet a very old standard that ignores rotational impact. They do not recognize Europe's new standard.

Closing these de minimus exemptions is making it harder for discerning consumers to buy higher quality goods than are currently available in the US right now. Protectionists are going to see this as a win.

More background on helmet standards:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0BUyp3HX8cY

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=76yu124i3Bo

The funny thing about MIPS is that it makes the same helmet safer, but it might have been a garbage helmet to begin with.

Throwing away your non-MIPS helmet and replacing it with a MIPS may be a safety-reducing decision, unless you’re buying the exact same model.

For anyone who wants more data, Virginia Tech runs a helmet impact testing lab and publishes results and rankings: https://www.helmet.beam.vt.edu/bicycle-helmet-ratings.html

If we used a similar methodology for testing cars, we’d be blasting watermelon heads from a cannon against windshields and sacks of potatoes against steering wheels.

We’d benefit from more realistic models. But I guess our helmets would then cost $500.

Is the methodology that bad? What's wrong with it?

From their test protocol (https://vtechworks.lib.vt.edu/server/api/core/bitstreams/5e7...), it looks like they simulate a fall (with a model head inside it) against a target at an oblique angle, at six different impact locations and two speeds each. They go through 4 of each helmet model for the rest.

It seems a lot better than nothing (which is what we had before them, at least outside of manufacturers own private tests). Their research was initially funded by the IIHS, the group that does the highway crash tests.

How would you like to see it improved?

I think the obvious problems is that majority of riders actually have hair and from my experience the chin strap isn’t very very tightly strapped (you want to speak normally I suppose).

Hair gives you considerable slip area making the inner rotational liners redundant or maybe even too much.

> from my experience the chin strap isn’t very very tightly strapped

Not on a motorcycle helmet! The double D ring system forces you to cinch it tight, and it does not restrict your jaw or make it hard to talk.

If you are experiencing this your helmet may be the wrong size. Most riders are picking helmets that are far too large.

I was talking about the bicycle helmets though, I should have been clearer.