BICYCLE SAFETY
NHTSA’s "Ride Like a Pro" Program partners with the National Football League during football season (culminating with the Super Bowl in January), so there is a great, timely tie-in with other fall safety programs. The Ride Like a Pro Program focuses attention on the importance of children wearing bicycle helmets and learning safe riding practices by using professional athletes within the community as role models to raise awareness about bicycle safety.
| New Bike Helmet Safety Standards
Effective March 1999, all bicycle helmets sold in the U.S. must meet a mandatory uniform standard issued by the Consumer Product Safety Commission (CPSC). NHTSA and CPSC have produced a series of materials to help get the word out on the new helmets and on correct usage and fit (see What’s New About Bicycle Helmets in Program Publications for Planner 19 in this Planner).
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Because of the interest in the Ride Like a Pro Bicycle Safety Event, NHTSA is developing a handbook to enable communities to partner with sports teams and host their own Ride Like a Pro event. This will provide opportunities to reach far more children to demonstrate safe riding practices and to emphasize the importance of bicycle helmets.
The Earth Force Organization’s "Get Out Spoke’n!" campaign provides ideas on how youth can promote bicycling and bicycle safety in their communities and schools. Action packs include how to make schools more bike friendly, increasing safety for bicycle riders, developing public awareness, and organizing bike-to-school rides. For more information about the Campaign, contact:
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Earth Force
1908 Mt. Vernon Avenue
Alexandria, VA 22301
Phone: 800-23-FORCE
E-mail: getoutspoken@earthforce.org
Web: http://www.earthforce.org
For more information on this and other bicycle safety programs, see the Summer Safety/July activities guide and Program Publications for Planner 19.
To help reduce the number of young people killed or injured in bicycle crashes, NOYS is funding a peer-to-peer bicycle safety program for college freshmen through the National Peer Helpers Association, the International Campus Law Enforcement Association and the National Safety Council. Properly developed, peer led and delivered programs can be an effective way of delivering safety messages to young people. Using the strength and involvement of young people, this program will develop, implement and evaluate a peer delivered model at a secondary school and college campus. Outcomes from this program will be shared through NHTSA and NOYS. For more information about this program, visit the National Peer Helpers Association’s Web site at http://www.peerhelping.org.
