Council Passes Helmet Ordinance

The Vienna Town Council unanimously passed an ordinance Monday requiring all children 14 or under to wear a helmet while riding or being carried on a bicycle, among certain other two-wheeled vehicles.

The ordinance, which falls under the section of Vienna code that deals with the operation of bicycles, applies to children "whenever riding or being carried on abicycle, an electric personal assistive mobility device, a toy vehicle, or an electric power-assisted bicycle on any highway as defined in Virginia Code §46.2-100, a sidewalk, roadway, bikeroute or public bicycle path."

Those who don't would be slapped with a $25 fine. First-time violators would have that fee suspended, along with those violators who buy a helmet between the time of the violation and receiving the fine.

Skateboards would not be included under the ordinance.

The amendment was drafted after Councilwoman Laurie Cole noticed the town was not in line with other nearby jurisdictions who had bicycle helmet laws, including Fairfax and Arlington Counties.

At Monday's meeting, resident Cris Janoski spoke in favor of the ordinance, citing several statistics from a nurse at Inova Hospital, including that 91 percent of those who died in bicycle accidents in 2009 weren’t wearing helmets.

"We support any type of safety for children," said Janoski, who lives along an often traffic-filled Old Courthouse Road. "We see them a lot, on bicycles and scooters ... a lot of them are children and a lot of them go very fast on a road like ours."