Posted in: | Jul 06,2018
Bicycling is what young children in Indiana like to do during summer. It is also one of the most certain ways to suffer an injury. In fact, new data indicates that as many as 25 American children are treated in hospital emergency rooms each hour, after suffering a bicycle accident-related injury.
That information comes from accident data collected over a ten-year period, which finds that more than 2.2 million American children every year suffer bicycle accident injuries that are serious enough for them to be rushed to an emergency room. According to the researchers, the rate of the injury seemed to decline over the ten-year period. However, there are still far too many children suffering injuries that are often very preventable.
The single most important thing that you can do to keep your children safe this summer is to make sure that they’re wearing helmets. According to the data, children who were not wearing a helmet at the time of the accident were much more likely to suffer a possibly serious traumatic brain injury in an accident.
However, not just any helmet will do. Make sure that your child is wearing a helmet that is perfectly fitted for him or her. The helmet should be certified by the US Consumer Product Safety Commission. Look for a sticker on the helmet that denotes this certification. Also, make sure that the child likes the helmet. Buying a helmet in a color or style that the child is not happy with is a surefire way to make sure that the child will avoid wearing the helmet as much as possible.
The helmet should not be too big – this doesn’t result in adequate protection for the child. Further, a helmet that is too big can easily come off during impact. It should also not be too small, which results in an uncomfortable fit. Basically, your child should be comfortable wearing the helmet, and the straps, while snug, should allow the child to completely open his mouth.
If your child rides on the street, make sure that he or she is aware of all the rules of riding on the street. Children should use bike paths wherever possible. If there are no bicycle paths, children should ride in areas that do not see much motor vehicle traffic. Accidents involving motor vehicles and children on bicycles are much more likely to result in serious injuries, with the risk of a traumatic brain injury almost doubling in a case like this, and the risk of a hospitalization quadrupling.
The Indianapolis bicycle accident lawyers at Montross Miller represent persons who have suffered injuries in bicycle accidents across Indiana.
