Have a Safe Ride: 5 Bicycle Safety Tips for Children

Summer’s coming, and your children are probably excited about their time off from school and the freedom to spend their summer days outside playing with their friends. But while you don’t want to dampen your child’s summer fun, preventing bike accidents and other mishaps is one of the keys to ensuring your child has a safe and enjoyable summer.

Staying Safe: 5 Bicycle Safety Tips

Many children get around in the summer on their bikes. Make sure they stay safe this summer with the following bicycle safety tips:

• Wear a helmet. Wearing a properly fitted helmet will help to reduce the risk of your child suffering a concussion or other head injury or trauma if they fall off or crash their bike. The key here is to make sure that the helmet you get your child fits them, and that they wear the helmet properly. For more help getting the right bicycle helmet for your child, check out the NHTSA’s guide for fitting a bicycle helmet. 
• Stay visible. Teach your child the importance of always being seen when they’re on the road. Remind them that a driver might not be able to see them even though they can see the driver. You can help them to stay visible by providing them with brightly colored clothing (neon or fluorescent are good choices) for when they’re riding their bikes, and buy reflective strips or lights for their bikes. 
• Be aware of road hazards. Children under 10 should always ride on the sidewalk, but an older child might be ready to ride on the road. Things like potholes or broken glass or other debris aren’t necessarily significant road hazards for cars, but it can be a different story when you’re on a bike. Even something as minor as a patch of gravel or a small mound of wet leaves can lead to your bicycle going out of control. Remind your children to stay alert for anything on the road that might cause them to crash.
• Avoid biking at night. If bicyclists can be invisible to drivers during the day, the situation is even worse when it’s dark out. If at all possible, your child should not be out on their bike at night. And if biking at night can’t be avoided, make sure they’re wearing clothing that can be seen in the dark, and their bikes have reflectors in the front and back, and on the tires.
• Know the rules of the road. Just like car drivers need to know the rules of the road, bicyclists also need to be familiar with the rules of the road before they ride on the road with their bikes. These include knowing their hand signals for making turns, walking their bikes across intersections, and riding with the flow of traffic if they’re riding on the road.

Involved in a Bicycle Accident? A Tifton Accident Attorney Can Help

If your child has suffered injuries while riding on their bike, the Tifton accident attorneys at Hudson Injury Firm are here to help. Contact us today to schedule an appointment with one of our experienced injury attorneys.