Why Wear a Helmet?
There are many good reasons to wear a helmet besides the most important one-that of preventing head injuries:
- Visibility: It is easier to see someone wearing a bright colored headpiece especially at dusk, in rain or fog, or after dark. Putting retro-reflective trim tape on the helmet makes you even more visible.
- Emergency Data: If you have a medical emergency condition, you can put information on a piece of tape inside the brim of your helmet. Also tape a quarter inside for an emergency phone call.
- Climate Protection: A helmet will help keep your head dry in the rain. If you do have to cycle in bad weather, this will help to make your riding much more enjoyable.
- Image: When you wear a helmet, motorists will expect you to ride correctly, since you will look like you know what you are doing.
Bicycle Safety Tips
- Ride With Traffic: Wrong way riders get hit by cars. One out of every five accidents is caused by wrong way riding. The law in all 50 states requires bicyclists to go with the flow of traffic.
- Look Before You Ride Out of the Driveway: This is a cold truth: almost half of the young children killed on bicycles die when they ride out of a driveway without first stopping or looking. Stop at the end of the driveway. Look both ways for traffic. Go when it is safe.
- Check for Traffic Before You Make a Turn: Many children do not look for traffic before they turn left or right, or turn around. Always look back, signal, check for traffic before you make any turn. Otherwise, you may get hit!
- Stop Signs Mean Stop: It is hard for children to judge the speed and distance of an oncoming car. Often adults ignore the law and run stop signs, too. Children will follow the examples of adults, and will not obey the law unless adults do. Please STOP at all signs, and look for traffic before proceeding.