Safety Out and About

Bicycle Safety

Bicycles are a common form of recreation, and getting a bike has become a milestone in just about every child’s life. With learning to ride a bike come the normal bumps, bruises, and skinned knees. What many people don’t seem to realize is the life threatening injuries that occur from bicycles, which happen more often than you might think. Bicycles are the most dangerous consumer product you buy for your children. Every year in the united states, around 280,000 children between the ages of 5 and 14 will sustain injuries serious enough to be rushed to the emergency room. About 150 will die each year from those injuries. It is estimated, that between 135 and 155 childhood deaths could be prevented each year, by the simple use of a helmet. Another 39,000 to 45,000 head injuries could also be prevented. As of 2003 statistics, Only 41 percent of children 14 and under wore helmets, and 35% of the ones who did wore them improperly.

Make your child wear a bicycle helmet!!!!! The majority of all deaths on bicycles occur from head injuries (85%). Many permanent injuries and deaths from bicycles are not caused by some massive collision with a car or a wall, but simply by the child falling off a bike at normal speeds and landing wrong on their head. Don’t make a helmet an option. Remember, perhaps only a hundred and fifty children die per year, but thousands more suffer permanent brain damage. 47% of the children hospitalized, (around 134,000 children) are treated for traumatic brain injury from bicycle accidents each year.

·	More than half of children who don’t wear helmets, say it is because their parents do not make them.

Get your child a helmet they will be proud to wear. Make helmets a show off item with your family. They sell many character helmets for younger children. As your kids get older, you can consider getting flames airbrushed on, or dragons, or whatever your child is into. Make it something they want to wear.

·	Your child’s helmet should fit snug around their head. Have your child shake their head back and forth quickly after putting it on. If it moves during this, it may not stay on during a crash. Tighten it up. Never buy your child a helmet they can “grow into.”

·	Avoid loose clothing when children are riding their bikes, as it could get caught in the pedals or spokes.

·	Get a bike that is appropriate for your child. Bikes that are too big, or not built for the child, are a common cause of bicycle related injuries.

·	Try to set aside pre-approved bike riding areas for your child, such as along bike paths, or in other areas away from traffic.

·	Do not let your children ride their bike at night. Children riding at dawn, dusk, or night are four times as likely to be injured.

·	Contact your local lawmakers and push for bicycle helmet laws. These have been shown to decrease injuries and fatalities by as much as 60%. If children could have their wheels temporarily confiscated by an officer for not wearing a helmet, all children would be much more inclined to keep theirs on.

·	Teach children to never ride in traffic. Stay on the sides of non-busy streets or in parks or sidewalks.

Have children always keep their helmet on, and let them know about how important it is. TBI (Traumatic Brain Injury) is the leading killer and cause of disability in children. A fall from as little as 2 feet can result in TBI. Explain to them that brains do not heal like the rest of their body. A brain injury will often leave a child permanently disabled.

·	Stay as far to the right of the road as you can when you ride.

·	Always be looking for parked cars that might be ready to pull out, or cars with people in them that might open a door without warning.

·	Watch for cars that are turning.

·	Teach children, if they have to cross an intersection, to get off their bicycle and walk it across the street.

·	Keep an eye out for the surface you are riding on. Watch out for large rocks, sticks, cracks, potholes, sewer grates, loose sand or gravel, wet surfaces, patches of ice, and other such hazards. Slow down before any surface change, because you never know how it might affect your bike.

·	Never do stunts on a street or in traffic.

·	If you have to avoid an obstacle suddenly, always swerve away from the road.

·	Follow all of the same precautions for any recreational device with wheels, such as skate boards, scooters, or roller skates.