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IDEAS
Use "Operation Teach" (included in this Planner) to work with educators in your area to get school children and their parents to buckle up. The program is part of "Buckle Up, America!" efforts, and offers teachers suggestions for ways to incorporate seat belt safety messages and activities into science, math and civics classes. It also encourages youthful activism by encouraging letter-writing campaigns, posters and other communications strategies.
Join the Partnership for a Walkable America and use the "Walkability Checklist" to gauge your community’s pedestrian environment. Publish the results in your community newspapers and challenge local businesses, civic organizations, public works departments and citizens to help make improvements such as additional lighting, sidewalk and street light repairs, clearing overhanging bushes, adding benches, etc. Issue quarterly progress reports and present awards to individuals, groups and businesses that make needed neighborhood improvements.
Organize a "Walk Our Children to School Day" event on October 6th. This event can also be tied to school bus safety by walking safely to the school bus. Included in this Planner are several Child Transportation Safety Tips and some camera-ready public service announcements on child pedestrian safety. To order other materials see the "Pedestrian Safety" section of this School Days Safety September-October activities guide and Program Publications for Planner 19 in this Planner.
Work with your elementary schools and local police departments to organize a bike safety rodeo. Give awards for skills competition, coolest bike helmet, etc. Offer a bike helmet-fitting clinic to help parents learn to adjust bike helmets for the best fit. Distribute the brochure Your Bike Helmet: A Correct Fit (see Program Publications for Planner 19 in this Planner). Include bicycle safety and bike helmet messages in all traffic safety program strategies, especially those aimed at children. Remind parents and children that if children ride bicycles to the playground, they should remove their helmet before climbing on playground equipment (to prevent entanglement and possible strangulation if helmet straps get caught on bars).
If your town holds a Halloween parade, host a "Halloween Helmet" brigade with bicyclists wearing witch hats on top of bike helmets or helmets painted to look like pumpkins. Be sure costumes fit properly and do not interfere with safe operation of the bicycle. Encourage retro-reflective tape or wristbands for added visibility. Also do not allow masks that cover the face, and ask participants to bring flashlights if they must walk in the dark to get to the parade line-up spot. Ask a car dealer or towing company to enter a safety float in the parade by putting a crashed car on a flatbed with a sign "Don’t Let This Be Your Trick – Buckle Up" or "Don’t Drink and Drive This Halloween." If you have access to a set of costumes, invite the crash test dummies "Vince and Larry®" to march in the parade along side the crashed car. Have them hand out stickers, balloons or the Halloween safety tips on page 6 of this Planner to children along the route.
Sponsor a program to stop motorists from illegally passing school buses. Contact your state Director for Public Transportation (see State and Regional Contacts in this Planner), local Safe Communities program or local law enforcement agency to find out what programs are being sponsored in your area or to find out how to start a program in your area. Raise awareness via the media (see Conducting Earned Media Outreach in this Planner) and work with police to increase enforcement of the law. Get school bus drivers involved. Before the event, have them count the number of illegal passing incidents in one day and then again for a full day after the program has been implemented.
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