IRVINE : Bike Helmet Policy Expected to Be OKd

Parents who let their children ride bicycles to Irvine Unified School District elementary schools this fall will have to send them off wearing helmets under a policy expected to receive final school board approval tonight.

The board of education is scheduled to adopt a policy at its 7:30 meeting that would require elementary school bicycle riders to strap on a helmet while pedaling to and from school.

If adopted, the policy would be the strictest bicycle helmet law in Orange County.

However, parents would be able to exempt their children from the law by talking to a school official and signing an “informed waiver” of the requirement.

The school board said it wanted to add the waiver option as part of the policy when it initially approved the rule last month. At the time, the board members said stricter requirements would be too heavy-handed.

Students who refuse to obey the policy will be told to leave their bicycles at home, said Dennis Gibbs, Irvine’s director of elementary school education.

Some school districts have adopted statements that encourage helmet use among student bicyclists but they do not mandate helmet use.

The policy would affect about 6,500 students in the district’s 21 elementary schools. One of the district’s middle schools also will experiment this fall with a bicycle helmet requirement to gauge how older students react to the rule.

But so far, there has been no run on helmets at Irvine’s largest bicycle store.

“I haven’t sensed a whole lot of rush right now but I think it will come as we get closer to the start of school,” said Brett Sievert, manager of Performance Bicycle Shop.

The store saw increased sales last fall when two Irvine elementary schools adopted bicycle helmet policies, Sievert said. The two schools required bicycle riders to wear helmets in preparation for the districtwide policy.