Kids and helmets
Author: Jason Crane
Date: 23 August, 2008
Category: Albany, Jason Crane, NYBC, safety
Several members of Team RocBike are also members of the board or staff of the New York Bicycling Coalition. NYBC got some press this week in the Schenectady Gazette:
Police go easy on kids without helmets — Education seen as higher priority
Friday, August 22, 2008
By Jessica Harding
Gazette Reporter
CAPITAL REGION — After an 8-year-old boy was hit by a car while riding his bike in Amsterdam, his mother was ticketed for his violation of the state’s bicycle helmet safety law.
Amsterdam Police Officer Ariel Santiago said such instances are rare.
“We’re more about education,” he said Thursday.
Santiago said he frequently stops children in the city and tells them to walk their bicycle home and get a helmet or confronts parents about the importance of helmets.
The boy was taken to St. Mary’s Hospital with minor injuries, but many bicycle accident victims are not so lucky.
Statistics from the Brain Injury Association of New York State say that 96 percent of cyclists killed in 1996 were not wearing a helmet and 88 percent of brain injuries from cycling accidents could have been prevented by wearing a helmet. Furthermore, more children between the ages of 5 and 14 go to hospital emergency rooms for biking accidents than any other sport.
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