Bike rodeo rounds up safety tips for children

With the area becoming more congested with traffic, being able to maneuver safely is becoming more important in their young lives.

To help children learn to navigate along with cars, trucks and pedestrians, as well as making wearing proper safety equipment a habit, FishHawk's first Bicycle Rodeo was held in conjunction with the annual FishHawk Ranch Health Fair.

Sponsored by South Florida Baptist Hospital, the rodeo was held in a parking lot adjacent to FIshHawk's Park Square. The rodeo was an outreach of St. Joseph's Children's Hospital Children's Advocacy Center, Tampa.

Throughout the Health Fair, held from11 a.m. to 2 p.m., about 35 children took advantage of learning how to ride a bicycle both smartly and safely.

In the car park - a course designed to simulate actual road conditions - signs and obstacles were set up giving participants varying riding scenarios. Some of the scenarioes included a crosswalk, a steering obstacle course, a stop sign/stop light and a braking area. Children were also instructed on how to use hand signals, stop and look at driveways and how to get in the habit of wearing a helmet, a state law for children in Florida.

As 9-year-old Fernando Gonzalez of Plant City lined up at a stop sign, Jaime Verberne, a child advocate with the Children's Advocacy Center, gave him directions on how to go through the course and cross the simulated street.

"Before you get to a crosswalk, get off your bike. Make eye contact, look both ways and cross slowly," she told him. "That's just right!"

At another station, St. Joseph's child advocate Kristi Nalls explained how to get through the obstacle course to Ashley Jacobs, 15, her sister, Shelby, 12, her brother, Colby, 5 and Emily Cutler, 11. The children then went about going around sticks and pine cones lined up on the parking lot surface.

According to a June 2009 report from the national Children's Safety Network, bicycle injuries and deaths affect children and young people more often than any other age group. For example, in 2005, 44 percent of nonfatal bicycle injuries occurred to children and youths ages 5 to 20 and children and youth from 1 to 20 years old made up 23.4 percent of bicycle fatalities.

It's those types of statistics that the Bicycle Rodeo drills were designed to curtail and why parents, like Jennifer Thomason, took time to bring their kids out to participate.

"This is really important for them," said FishHawk's Thomason, who was attended with her sons, Adam, 5 and Logan, 3. "Some of the things I try to explain to then, they seem like they don't listen. But if they hear from someone else, they listen."