[zail]

I've got three type of protective trousers:

Akito leathers with removeable hip and knee armour

Draggin Jeans combats with knitted aramid (kevlar) lining and no armour

Hood Jeans with woven aramid lining and Knox hip and knee armour.

I have come off twice wearing the leathers - once on a speed bump on campus when going to work, once on main road when I over braked for lights and I slid a very small way down the road on both occasions with minor abraisons to the leathers and minor bruises to me. When I broke my leg by dropping the bike on it as I was riding out of the garage I was wearing the leathers but had the armour out of them. When I asked the orthopedic consultant he wasn't convinced that the armour would have stopped me breaking my leg - he thought that the force of the bike hitting my tib and fib at the knee would not have been dissipated enough to stop the injury (and I'm not about to experiment!)

I have come off once wearing the Hood Jeans onto gravel - slight bruising to me, no visable mark on the jeans.

I always ride with one of the sets of trousers listed above - I never ride in ordinary jeans. When riding a long distance I generally choose the leathers. My thinking is that both the leathers and the aramid lined jeans will help in a slide down the road. I think that armour will help protect knees and hips from an impact with the road but will be of limited use in a heavy crash. I agree with Alex about lid being the most important life saving kit on a bike and at the end of the day people need to make their own choices about what they wear - I don't think I would like to see a situation where ATGATT was imposed.