CHATSWORTH : Cyclist Brings Safety Program to L.A. Schools

For the last 12 years, Tana Ball’s life has revolved around bicycles.

The Chatsworth woman was a coach for the United States Cycling Federation, U.S. junior national amateur teams and a Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department women’s team.

She knows the benefits of bicycling from her vantage point as coach, and in the mid-1980s she began to think of introducing the sport of bicycle racing to schoolchildren.

“It has been a dream of mine since I worked at the Olympic Training Center,” Ball said.

She also knows the importance of helmets and bicycle safety. As a bicycle racer in 1987, she was competing at the velodrome built for the 1984 Olympics when she crashed at over 30 m.p.h. She was unconscious for several hours but her helmet saved her from serious injury.

Recently, she authored a proposal for a bicycle safety education program that will become part of the physical education curriculum in middle and high schools in the Los Angeles Unified School District.

Ironically, Ball’s bicycle safety proposal was approved the day before she received her last physical therapy session to treat injuries from a bicycle accident last summer. More than 80% of the funding for the $617,000 two-year program will be provided by the Metropolitan Transportation Authority, said Ball, who will be the program’s director.

Program components will include building self-esteem, increasing the acceptance of helmets and encouraging students to seek alternative methods of transportation. One long-term goal is to change the normal patterns of commuting by car that develop when students graduate and become employed, Ball said.

Ball said the program, called Bicycle Commuting and Safety Video Education, will provide lesson plans and an instructional video for all physical education instructors in the district, and should reach an estimated 400,000 students.

Ball said the program can be used by all teachers even if they have no experience with cycling. Students will receive bike handling and safety information that will help them be more defensive bicyclists when they ride on public roads, she said.

This is not Ball’s first instructional film project. In 1987, she was an adviser for the film “Be Safe on Your Bike,” produced for the Los Angeles Police Department. That film was made in cooperation with the USC film department. USC will also assist with the current project, which Ball said will reduce the video’s production costs.