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It’s also wildly lazy “science.” If I wear a helmet that’s too big for me, and then complain that I got hurt, and you saw that the helmet fit improperly, you’d tell me “hey man, that sucks, but that helmet is obviously too big.” But, these guys as policy use helmets that are too big, give some inscrutable ratings, and have parents wringing their hands over terrible data. Your point that “no one would read all that” is a huge problem with this study. Their testing doesn’t do a good job testing for hockey injuries. It’s all buried in fine print and the results incredibly oversimplified. There are consumers making choices off of bad data. And now companies are chasing good ratings from this study, but the variables they test are so skewed it’s not even viable. We aren’t critiquing a highschool science fair project. If we were, I think people would be right in their “hey guys, they are doing their best and this seems like a neat idea” defense. VT is pushing this as a rigorous study and it simply isn’t. Imagine if they were testing seatbelt safety, but some of the time just stuck the seatbelts into that cushions rather than latching them correctly. Personally, I’d see that and think I can’t trust anything they publish, because the methods are so flawed. But, instead, people are craving this ratings system even though it’s flawed the variables are wonky.