Protect your noggin

Community Services Officer Yvon Montcalm and Sergeant Alan Kraft reward 6-year-old Megan Cundari and her 4-year-old brother Nicholas for wearing their bike helmets.

According to Risk Watch unintentional bicycle injuries are the most common cause of brain injury in children. With that in mind the North Bay Police Service and Risk Watch are teaming up to reinforce the importance of wearing a helmet.

“Children are either involved in a collision or they fall off their bikes,” explains Fran Laframboise Public Health Nurse and member of Risk Watch.

“The most serious injury is a brain or head injury and something that can affect you for the rest of their life. Not like a broken arm that repairs itself or heals over time, brain injuries sometimes what happens can be a result for the rest of their life that injury will always stay there.”

The idea of the program is positive reinforcement versus lecturing, so officers out on patrol will reward children under the age of 14 who they see wearing a helmet with a water bottle.

Laframboise says although the Risk Watch program is school based the committee felt it was important to develop something to address activities that happen over the summer months.

“In the program itself it has a home link and a community link and we’re trying to get some profile through Risk Watch to show where that community link is, and encourage kids to wear their helmets.”

“Risk Watch talks about making the right choices and we want them to make the choice every day, to wear their helmet for every ride they take.”

Risk Watch focuses on pre-school to grade 8, and Laframboise says the crucial target age is 14, but reminds everyone that the legislation applies to anyone under 18 years old.

“We’re hoping that they are going to make the choice to do it, rather than having to be ticketed for it.”
Laframboise also says adults can be the role model for children by wearing their helmets every time they ride their bikes.

“I think everybody has the potential of having an injury either falling off their bike or being in a collision, so certainly if parents were modeling wearing a helmet it would be great.

“If you look at the people who ride their bikes for sport, they wear a good helmet, and there’s enough variety out there if the kids want to look cool, there’s some really cool looking helmets.”