Here's the flyer to a cool educational event to help your kids be safe on the bike. Click below for the press release with some startling facts.

Bicycle Safety:  Strategies to Avoid Accidents and Injuries

May 12 Bike Rodeo to Help Kids Gear Up for a Safe Bike-riding Season

Each year, more than 500,000 individuals end up seeing a doctor due to bicycle accidents. At least 50,000 bicyclists suffer serious head injuries. Many are children.

In fact, according to Janie Schumaker, R.N., Emergency Services director at Providence Medical Center, as many as one of seven children under age 15 suffers a head injury in a bike crash.

Riding bikes is a great activity and mode of transportation, but it can also be risky, Schumaker says. Bicycles are involved in more childhood injuries than any other consumer product except the automobile.

“Statistics reveal that children ages five to 15 are at greatest risk of death and injury on a bike,” Schumaker says. “Though helmets can’t keep a cyclist from falling, they can reduce the risk of brain injury by as much as 88 percent when a crash occurs.”

             Consider these parenting tips for making it “cool” to wear helmets:

• Encourage helmet use before “being cool” matters. Put helmets on children when they begin riding tricycles. Make it a habit.
• Be a role model. Younger children are strongly influenced by the example of their parents and older siblings. Establish a household rule that applies to everyone: if you ride a bicycle, wear a helmet.
• Participate in a bicycle safety program such as the Kiwanis West Bike Rodeo.
• Take your child(ren) and several friends to pick out helmets together. Allowing a child to choose his or her own “style” will ensure the helmet is worn. When your child selects a helmet with friends, it’s more likely that he or she will “feel cool” about using it. Be sure to buy helmets that meet the Consumer Product Safety Commission standard.
• Promote helmet use among other parents and caregivers. Educate others, work as a team to make sure rules and expectations are enforced consistently.

·        Be prepared to take a stand when peer pressure is working against the use of helmets. Be firm. Don’t back down.

“Biking is a fun and healthy activity,” says Dan Hansen, owner of TREK Bicycle Store.  “However, before youngsters hit the streets on their bicycles, be certain their bike is the right size, that they know the rules of the road and that their bicycles are operating properly.”

            In addition to wearing a bike helmet, here are basic safety rules parents should reinforce with their children:

•  Stop at all intersections, marked and unmarked. Walk bike across busy intersections and streets.

•  Ride with traffic.

•  Stop and look both ways before entering traffic.

•  Use cross walks, whenever possible.

•  Obey traffic signs, signals and pavement markings.

•  Avoid walking between parked cars, and watch out for opening car doors.

•  Before turning, use hand signals and look in all directions.

•  Yield the right-of-way to pedestrians.

•  Make sure motorists can see you. Wear brightly colored clothing and equip your bicycle with a reflector.

·  Wear sturdy shoes. Do not wear sandals, flip-flops or shoes that leave your feet exposed.

•  Use bike paths and lightly traveled streets when possible.

•  Avoid riding at night. If it gets dark, call home for a lift. If you must cycle at night, make sure your bike is equipped with a light.

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