DECEMBER 2014
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Bike-n-Walk Safely Alaska
Reflectorsaurus helps spread the Bike-n-Walk Safely Alaska message
With summer on the
way in Alaska,
children were climbing on their bikes and walking to neighborhood parks. They
needed to know the rules of the road and what to wear on their heads – and on
their bodies – to keep them safe. Staff from the Section of Chronic
Disease Prevention and Health Promotion traveled to Nome and other Alaska
communities this year to teach the kids safe ways to play.
This past year, the Section’s Injury
Prevention Program ran a children’s bicycle and pedestrian safety project
called Bike-n-Walk
Safely Alaska. Bicycle and pedestrian safety is an increasing concern for
people across the country and the state. According
to the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration, 4,743 pedestrians died
in a traffic crash in the United States in 2012; this was a 6% increase from
the number reported in 2011. One-fifth (22%) of those pedestrian deaths were
children ages 5 to 15. Based on data collected in the Alaska Trauma
Registry, children ages 0-14 have the highest number of bike and pedestrian
injuries in Alaska, and close to half of the injuries among children were
Alaska Native.
Injury Prevention staff visited schools in Anchorage,
Kodiak, Seward and Nome to educate children on how to play safely in the dark
and while riding their bicycles. In May, they organized a bike rodeo that
dozens of Nome children attended. They brought everything from one-speed bikes
to bikes with training wheels and made their way through a course that taught
many skills: how to stop in front of
cones, to balance as they made it around roundabouts, and even to control their
bikes as they raced to show who could bike the slowest (not fastest). Kids were
able to get their helmets fitted properly and also learn how to care for their
bikes. Participating kids received a bike helmet if they didn’t already have
one.
Alaska’s bicycle and pedestrian safety program
purchased and distributed almost 400 bike helmets to help children all over
Alaska learn about helmet
safety. Program staff also handed out thousands of reflectors
that kids can wear when it’s dark, helping them be seen by drivers. In Nome, there
was a visit by Reflectorsaurus — a reflective dinosaur mascot who reinforces
playing in safe ways.
The Section’s Injury
Prevention Program partners with individual communities and other injury
prevention programs to share the message about bicycle and pedestrian safety. The
program’s collaborative partners include Safe Routes to School
, Alaska Native Tribal
Health Consortium (ANTHC), Alaska Injury Prevention
Center, Safe Kids,
and SouthEast
Alaska Regional Health Consortium. These partnerships help reduce
duplication of efforts while building on others’ strengths and capacity for
material development, training and technical assistance. Bike-n-Walk Safely
Alaska has also collaborated with programs within the Section, such as the Play Every
Day campaign, which made reflective zipper pulls that kids all over Alaska
could wear when they get out and play every day.
Biking and walking safely continues to be a challenge
in a state where roads are limited in rural communities and resources for
alternative transportation are lacking. The Bike-n-Walk Safely Alaska program will
continue to focus on improving the safety and well-being of Alaska’s child
bicyclists and pedestrians.
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