Child Safety

Bicycle Safety Project

Mission

The mission of the Injury Prevention Program is to reduce the incidence of accidental injury for children under the age 14 in Erie County. One of the most successful projects is the annual Bicycle Safety Project, partnered with Safe Kids Erie, and called Safe Kids Day.

Safe Kids Day was a full day of family entertainment and educational activities which promoted awareness of children's health and safety issues. Safe Kids Erie Area and 44 community agencies and businesses joined forces to stage the event, attended by hundreds of Erie area families. Many areas of safety were addressed during this program. The areas include bike, water, fire, playground, railroad, seatbelt, home and falls prevention, lead prevention, poison prevention, animal bite prevention, and brain injury prevention as well as 9-1-1 education and simulations.

This year, over 400 children ages toddler thru teen participated in the program. Each child was accompanied by an adult to bring the total event participation to over 700. To encourage full participation in all 14 safety activities the kids received sports water bottles, free food and coupons, and other prizes. After attending all educational presentations they were able to enter the safety auction to win wonderful prizes such as, equestrian helmets, booster seats, smoke alarms, carbon monoxide detectors, ski/snowboard helmets, action helmets and a new bicycle. The educational demonstration also provide material and neat give-a-ways such as activity books, pencils with a safety messages, window locks and baby gates, bike safety blinkers, medical ID tags for inside the bike helmet, stickers and more. Refreshments were also available.

Elevated Summer Risk Areas

Research from Safe Kids Worldwide 2001- 2004 demonstrated that unintentional injuries and deaths of children ages 0 to 14 increase in the summer. Six years later, our research indicates a 17.6 percent drop in summer unintentional injury deaths across the nation (comparing data from 1997-1999 to data from 2002-2004), yet child unintentional injury deaths continue to spike.

Almost 60 percent of total child unintentional injury deaths from May through August in 2001 to 2004 involved drowning (up 89 percent over the annual monthly average); biking (up 45 percent); falls (up 21 percent); motor vehicle occupant activities (up 20 percent) and pedestrian incidents (up 16 percent).5 This report focuses on these five risk areas because they cause the majority of child unintentional injury deaths in the summer.

Tracy Elementary School hosted Safe Kids Day on Saturday May 12, 2007 from 10:00 a.m. to 2:00 p.m. on the main campus. We were unique in the privilege of having the use of three parking areas to conduct the training plus the school areas, classrooms, and the gym.

This is why SAFE KIDS ERIE AREA offers bicycle safety as one of its programs. A bicycle derby is a wonderful way to teach children the importance of safe biking while incorporating a good fun time. The bicycle safety obstacle course included the skills needed to ride safely and importance of wearing their helmet each and every time they are on a bicycle (even in their driveway)!

The bike safety derby contained twelve different safety skill stations. Including: bike inspection, rules of the road, straight line control, weaving & maneuvering, rock dodge & thread the needle, demon driveway, who’s there, demon drive, crazy crosswalks, do right by lights, panic stop

Organizations Involved:

Babies R Us
Lou Porreco - Honda Dealership
Cathedral Preparatory School for Boys
Child Care Services
Crime Victim Center
CSX Railroad
EarthForce
Employees’ Community Service Fund of General Electric
Erie County 911 Emergency Management
Erie County Department of Health
Erie County Sherriff’s Department
Erie Metropolitan Transit Authority
Erie Times News
General Electric
Hamot Shock Trauma
Kiwanis Club
McDowell High School
Mighty Fine Donuts
Millcreek Ambulance Service
Millcreek Police Department
NW Regional Highway Safety Network
PA Safe Kids
PA State Police
Papa John’s Pizza
Presque Isle Cycling Club
Puline & Sons, Inc.
Safe Kids Erie Area
Safe Kids Worldwide
Scott Enterprises
Tracy Elementary School and PTO
Traffic Injury Prevention Project
Troyer Farms
United Way of Erie
Wal-Mart – Elm Street
West Brothers BMX
West Lake Fire Department

Accomplishments/Successes:

Goal attendances accomplished.
Positive feedback from Safe Kids board, students, school and the families.
Good traffic control.
Excellent distribution of safety material.
The incentives were a successful way to increase full event participation.
Falls prevention/Home safety was very successful families responded strongly to this station.
A partnership with Babies R Us enhanced the program with additional staff and a multiple safety concerned covered. Baby gates, window locks, outlet plugs, window bind ties and educational material was also provided at this large interactive station.
The fire safety portion included the fire safety house, stop-drop & roll, get low under smoke, a picture with the safety mascot and the water blast game.
The CSX Railroad station was an important station due to the large number of railroad tracks in the community, and their Life Savers program has been invited to three other health fairs due to contacts made at the Bike Derby.
Cathedral Prep honor students educated families about water, pool and spa safety.
Hamot Shock Trauma learning station taught concussion management, animal bite safety, and Playground safety
The bike inspection station is provided by the members of the Presque Isle Cycling Club, they also ran the safety course for the children.