Valley Regional Fire Authority Firefighters will be “pulling over” children who are wearing helmets and exhibiting safe behavior on their bicycles this summer. Safe riders will receive a safety citation from firefighters and a coupon for a free three-inch sandwich from one of three Auburn Subway Sandwich stores.

The “Safe Rider Citation” program has been in place in parts of King and Pierce County for several years, encouraging children to wear bicycle helmets and follow road safety rules.

Statistics show that wearing a bicycle 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 look for groups of children who are primarily not wearing helmets. We then pick out one or two children with bike 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 three Subway Sandwich stores within the VRFA service area. They are located at 1702 Auburn Way North, 620 Auburn Way South and 3840 A St. SE.

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.