Red Phone is really impressed how fast you get your bikes in a
row. Remember Red Phone’s bike safety column
– the expose on parents allowing their children to bike around
the city without wearing helmets? (see
”
Hey Kids, Cover Your Heads!
”
Starting the safety cycle
Dear Gilroy,
Red Phone is really impressed how fast you get your bikes in a row.
Remember Red Phone’s bike safety column – the expose on parents allowing their children to bike around the city without wearing helmets? (see “Hey Kids, Cover Your Heads!” May 2) Red Phone called out to readers to come together to teach and preach bike safety to reduce the problem. You responded in big way, just in time for Bike to Work Day. So, Red Phone gives you a pat on the helmet and the bicycle safety follow-up.
The city of Gilroy is pedaling hard to facilitate Red Phone’s bicycle safety awareness campaign. Tied to “Bike to Work Day” in Santa Clara County, the City of Gilroy is encouraging parents and children to educate themselves on bicycle safety. Employees who can will be biking to work Thursday and distributing bicycle safety information, tips and maps for local trails.
The Silicon Valley Bicycle Coalition, the Bay Area Bicycle Coalition, and the Metropolitan Transportation Commission are holding the 12th annual event that encourages local residents to try bicycling, and it is part of a continuing effort to relieve traffic congestion, improve bicycling, and ease motor-vehicle emissions in the Bay Area. Almost 40 percent of Bay Area commuters live within five miles of their workplace, a distance considered ideal for a bicycle commute.
If every person living near his or her workplace hopped on a bike instead of in a car on Bike to Work Day, more than 60,000 vehicles would be off the road, reducing tailpipe emissions by more than 150,000 pounds.
Gilroy’s Environmental Programs Division of the Community Services Department is heading up Thursday’s festivities. They’ll be celebrating with a breakfast at City Hall for all employees. They also will enter everyone who biked to work into a small raffle where the winner will receive a reusable grocery bag filled with goodies and a bicycle shop gift certificate. The division wants to encourage Gilroy employers to give similar perks to their bike-to-work employees. It’s events like this that are part of a continuing effort to educate on bike safety in the state and reduce the number of bicycle injuries. Funding was cut about six years ago for the Bicycle Head Injury Prevention Program, according to Roger Trent, California’s Chief of Injury Surveillance and Epidemiology. But, when the program was active, he said it laid the ground work for cities to take on the Bike Day events because all the safety information, such as the “Parent Education Flyer” in English and Spanish, remains available from the state. It just needs distributed.
Another method of distribution and aspect of Bike to Work Day is the Bike Away from Work Bash. There will be a big one in San Jose where the SVBC gives awards and prizes for bikers. Gilroy’s Bike Away Bash will be at Stubby’s Sports Bar and Grill from 3pm to midnight. Volunteers will be there to distribute flyers and maps to parents and children while celebrating their bike day efforts at the all-night happy hour mixer. The goal is to work together to make Bike Day an annual event in Gilroy, and make next year’s a critical mass of Gilroy cyclists – young and old.
Red Phone applauds you, Gilroy. Way to get your wheels turning!
For more information on Bike to Work Day, bicycle safety, or to learn how to volunteer Thursday, call 846-0460 or 846-0462 or stop by the Community Services Department.
