Bicycle Safety
Teach Your Child Well: Bicycle Safety Issues
Bicycling is fun, it helps us keep fit, and it gives us mobility. The most import part of having fun cycling is to learn to do it safely. The attitudes parents instill in their child now will help to determine how he or she will ride for years to come. If parents work at it from the beginning, if they teach their child as if his or her life depends on these lessons -- which it does -- then they will feel more confident when their kids rides down the road.
The basic set of rules for beginning bicyclist are:
1. No playing in the road.
2. No riding on busy streets.
3. Stop and look before entering a roadway to cross or for any other reason.
4. Bicycle ride with traffic regardless of whether it is on the road, on the shoulder or on the sidewalk.
5. Stop for all stop signs and obey all other traffic signs and signals..
6. Make your own decisions (don't do something just because a friend did it.).
7. Keep at least one hand on the handlebars at all times -- two is better.
8. No riding at night -- even in broad daylight bright cloths are good.
9. Even if you are doing everything else right, it is a good idea, and sometime the law, to wear a helmet.
The specific safety issue for children change dramatically by age and the kind of environment they are riding in. In general terms the sequence is about like this:
Child first learn to bicycle at obstacle-free park, courts (basketball or tennis), parking lot or driveway. The are taught balance, steering and pedaling. They need to keep their speed commensurate with their skills. See Teaching / Learning to Bike
Child starts to leave court or driveway, to use walkways. He or she starts to encounter pedestrians and hazards like cracks in the pavement, glass, debris, poles, benches, etc. Cyclist start to speed up. It needs to be reinforced that they need to keep control of the bike and THINK about avoiding hazards and obstacles. Most accidents don't involve motor vehicles. Most are falls, collisions with stationary objects, collisions with pedestrians or collisions with other bikes.
Child gets to corner and wants to cross the street or child starts to ride into the road at some other point (i.e. end of a driveway). Child needs the discipline to ALWAYS stop and look both ways for moving vehicle, and wait for the light if appropriate. While accidents with cars are statistically small, procedures for entering the motor vehicles merit extra practice for beginning cyclists.
The next progression for the child to begin to ride in the street. From the first moment and forever, they should ride with traffic. Before age ten children still need to be supervised when they bicycle. Few kids younger than ten can really understand traffic. They can be taught certain specific skills but they will have trouble understanding concepts like "right-of-way."
Sometimes soon, sometimes later, the young cyclist will get to an intersection. As a default and certainly where there is a stop sign, they need to stop, regardless of what is happening, scan both directions for traffic, wait for any cross traffic to clear and then proceed when safe. It is import that everyone make their own decisions -- no follow the leader through intersections.
For ordinary bicycling learning safety is more important than equipment. Of coarse it is important that the bike fits, it has coaster-brakes and be in good repair, especially the brakes so that slowing down and stopping can be controlled.
Helmets are the next most important piece of equipment. Bicycle helmets don't do anything to avoid crashes -- which is the real objective -- but they can be important in reducing head injuries if one should occur. Head injuries have a high potential for being sever and can be life threatening -- they are the most common cause of death for bicyclists. Given the grave potential consequences and the cost of prevention, helmet are excellent value. The highest rate of bike-related head injuries is among boys 10-14, but helmets are a good idea for cyclist of all ages and genders. To work properly helmets need to fit properly! For more information click to helmets.
Probably the most common, unintended, part of the body to impact the ground is the palm of the hand. To reduce these injuries, leather palmed cycling gloves are available, but to a lesser extent in kid sizes.
For additional information on bicycle safety please visit the International Bicycle Fund web site: http://www.ibike.org/education/safety-kids.htm
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