Wednesday, May 8, 2013

National Bike to School Day

Today is National Bike to School Day!

Biking is a great way to get to school, unfortunately, more kids ages 5 to 14 are seen in emergency rooms for injuries related to biking than any other sport. Each year, 112 children die from bike-related injuries and more than 289,000 nonfatal bike injuries occur.


Safe Kids Worldwide offers these tips to stay safe when biking:
  • We have a simple saying: "Use your head, wear a helmet." It is the single most effective safety device available to reduce head injury and death from bicycle crashes.
  • Tell your kids to ride on the right side of the road, with traffic, not against it. Stay as far to the right as possible. Use appropriate hand signals and respect traffic signals, stopping at all stop signs and stoplights.
  • Teach your kids to make eye contact with drivers. Bikers should make sure drivers are paying attention and are going to stop before they cross the street.
  • When riding at dusk, dawn or in the evening, be bright and use lights – and make sure your bike has reflectors as well. It's also smart to wear clothes and accessories that have retro-reflective materials to improve biker visibility to motorists.
  • Actively supervise children until you're comfortable that they are responsible to ride on their own.
More tips are available at http://www.safekids.org/tip/bike-safety-tips

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