When it comes to work safety, the hard hat is the most important line of defense. Modern day work sites are battlefields and coming prepared with top of the line defenses is no laughing matter. Recent advances in technology along with improved OSHA standards have led to the development of the modern day hard hat helmet. With these modern day developments comes the suspension hard hat, a helmet designed to lessen the impact of a blow by transferring the force into various straps located inside the helmet - and away from a person's head. These suspension helmets have shown in studies to reduce the likelihood of serious trauma and allows a person to walk away from an otherwise fatal accident.
Suspension hard hats come in two different models, 4 point (pt) suspension and 6 pt suspension. The first main difference between these models is the amount of suspension each helmet contains; the 4 pt models have only two straps on each side for a total of 4 pts while the 6pt models have 3 straps per each side. Although both deemed safe by OSHA and ANSI a person should look into what type of work will be done to determine which helmet to wear. 6 pt suspension models offer superior protection in regards to blows in which the lateral side of the head comes in contact, or the blow comes from an off-center axis, whereas 4 pt models offer good coverage for the side of the head with superior protection for the front and top.
A person's safety should always come first, and when choosing a hard hat a 6pt option is always the safest bet. With more straps to distribute force away from the head a person is much less likely to walk away from trauma unscathed.
Source by Dave Chin