BURRILLVILLE – This Bus Stop Kids wear helmets summer safety Sunday cartoon hopes to reach out to parents, guardians, teenagers and especially kids about helmet safety.
The Seasons Of Safety coloring cartoon has a focus on skateboarding and rollerblading – both extremely popular with kids and teenagers. I often see kids and teenagers participating in these activities during my travels back and forth to classic car and truck shows, live radio show events and broadcasts as well as tackling necessary errands on a day-to-day basis.
What troubles me the most is that approximately 75 percent of them are not wearing helmets or protective padding. Many of them are actually participating in these wheeled sports activities on busy streets and roadways. They are attempting to do cool tricks and stunts while copying the professional athletes that achieve these stunts after training and years of experience. The athletes also participate with these activities on closed courses and parks, not on streets.
It’s very important to provide a child with a helmet that properly fits their head, along with knee and elbow pads. It will help keep them safer and protected in case of a fall or mishap on skateboards and rollerblades. Every year, kids and teenagers are rushed to hospital ERs because they were not wearing helmets and protective pads on their bodies while participating in wheeled sports activities.
Please make copies and sit down with your kids and teenagers and explain to them the hazards they face by not following safety guidelines. These safety coloring cartoons are perfect for daycares, libraries, community centers, family clinics and pediatric doctors offices when school is dismissed for the summer.
“Don’t lose your head… Use your head. Wear a helmet!”
Jim Weicherding is a Burrillville resident, and the founder and creator of an award-winning traffic safety effort Seasons of Safety. Weicherding contributes kids’ coloring cartoons, which can be printed and used to help parents discuss safety issues with their children. He has a long list of police officers and firefighters in his family and has worked with law enforcement and firefighters in a creative public safety capacity for more than two decades. Jim was also appointed to Children Across America as their events and creative director for their child safety programs initiatives and outreach kids safety campaigns nationwide.
