With the warm weather, children on bicycles, scooters, skateboards and in-line skates are everywhere.
Cycling, rollerblading, skateboarding and riding a scooter are great ways for kids to keep active. The Canada Safety Council points out that while kids need to be safety conscious, they should get out there and have fun.
According to the Canada Safety Council, when it comes to kids being injured on wheeled devices, the unfortunate truth is that most mishaps are the fault of the child. That puts a big responsibility on parents to instill safety from a young age. As a parent or caregiver to children, you must supervise them, help them gain skill, and learn the rules of the road.
When children follow each other on their bikes, for example, the first child may run a stop sign and get through and the next one is hit. Teach children that they must always assess the traffic situation for themselves.
The largest proportion of mishaps doesn’t involve motor vehicles. Most common are falls, hitting a stationary object, and running into a bike or pedestrian. However, being struck by motor vehicles is responsible for about 90 per cent of cycling fatalities.
Almost two-thirds of in-line skating injuries happen on roads and sidewalks. Relatively few occur in those areas best suited for recreational in-line skating, such as playgrounds and rinks.
Scooters are very popular in our area – not the motorized variety, but the ones with a handle and a platform for standing. Their recent popularity across Canada has been accompanied by a surge in related injuries, mostly to children under 15 years of age. Protective equipment, including wearing a helmet, could have prevented many of the injuries.
What’s the single most important precaution for children on wheels? The Canada Safety Council insists on the value of wearing a bicycle helmet for all these activities. In a spill, the forehead usually hits the ground first. Head injuries are very serious, causing most fatalities and serious injuries. Transport Canada statistics for 2001 reveal that all cyclist fatalities under age 15 were unhelmeted.
Buy and use only helmets that bear the CSA mark. Those helmets meet the requirements of Canada’s national standard for bicycle helmets. CSA International now has a bicycle helmet standard for children under five, the first in North America. Parents should look for helmets with a permanent yellow label informing purchasers that the helmet is specially designed for cyclists and cycle passengers under the age of five.
This information is presently by the Canada Safety Council. EIMSL has no affiliation with the Canada Safety Council.
