the 07/21/2008

Bike rodeos stress use of helmets

It takes only about five pounds of pressure to create a headinjury, said Harris, the coordinator of the East Baton Rouge ParishEmergency Medical Services Bike Team.

All bicycle helmets, regardless of whether theyre cheap onespurchased from drugstores or expensive ones found at bicycle shops,are required to meet a standard that will usually keep that fivepounds of pressure from happening.

Bicycle helmets, Harris said, "keep your head from being an egg.Thats how we get to kids."

Free bicycle helmets provided by a grant were the impetus behind aseries of bike rodeos hosted during the past month across anine-parish area, said Louisiana State Police spokesman TrooperJohnnie Brown.

A 2006 study showed that proper use of a bicycle helmet could haveprevented up to 85 percent of serious head injuries suffered inbike crashes.

The bike rodeos were organized after Louisiana State Policereceived a grant from the state Department of Transportation andDevelopment and Safe Routes to School to distribute 9,000 bicyclehelmets across the state with 1,000 allocated to the Troop A area,Brown said.

But beyond giving away helmets, he said, state police andbike-patrol officers wanted to provide bicycle-safety tips andtraining to participants to prevent accidents from happening.

At the bike rodeos -- the last two of which were held on a recentSaturday at Ben Burge Park in Baton Rouge and at Rivault Park inPort Allen -- nationally certified bike patrol officers fromagencies such as EMS and the Baton Rouge Police Department providedsafety tips.

The safety tips ranged from teaching children ages 5 to 14 handsignals for turning and stopping to showing them the properclothing to wear for high visibility.