Valley Regional Fire Authority firefighters will be “pulling over” children who are wearing helmets and exhibiting safe behavior on their bicycles, skateboards and skates this summer.

Safe riders will receive a safety citation from firefighters and a coupon for a free vanilla ice cream cone from one of six Auburn McDonald’s stores.

The “Safe Rider Citation” program has been in place in parts of King and Pierce County for seven years, encouraging children to wear helmets and follow safety rules when on a bike, skateboard, skates or any other non-motorized wheeled activity. Statistics show that wearing a helmet can reduce the chance of a serious head injury by 85 percent. Firefighters hope to encourage all the kids they come in contact with to wear their helmets anytime they are on wheels.

“We often discover groups of children where only one or two in the group are wearing helmets. We then pick out those children with helmets and reward them for their smart choice – in hopes of encouraging the others to follow their example,” said VRFA Firefighter Dave Berg. “The next time we run into that group, we usually hand out safety citations to them all.”

There are five participating McDonald’s stores within the VRFA service area. They are located at:

• 1531 Auburn Way N., Auburn

• 702 Auburn Way S., Auburn

• 1304 Supermall Way, Auburn

• 3920 A Street SE, Auburn

• 1322 Lake Tapps Parkway E., Auburn

Both the VRFA and Auburn Regional Medical Center offer low-cost helmets and custom fitting at their facilities. More information can be found at www.vrfa.org.