NORTH KANSAS CITY, Mo. (KCTV) – North Kansas City Schools says an increase in wheeled devices in the area has brought a rise in safety concerns, prompting the district to partner with BikeWalkKC for the first-ever NKC Wheel Smart Bash.
The free event was built around hands-on lessons to help children ride safely.
“We’re trying to educate the public. Rather than enforce more rules and limit kids’ freedom and mobility,” said Matt Barrows, a P.E. teacher with NKC Schools.
Students at the event said the lessons reflect dangers they already encounter close to home.
“There’s this road in our neighborhood that has exactly zero stop signs. Whenever people are driving down that as fast as they can because there’s no stop sign, we gotta know what we’re doing to protect ourselves when they aren’t protecting themselves,” said attendees Bowen and Koa.
Barrows said the goal is prevention before an incident requires medical attention.
“We want the kids to be able to protect themselves. We’ve been seeing it too often in the news. Young kids getting hurt, and injured… ending up at Children’s Mercy… and we don’t want that,” Barrows said.
BikeWalkKC said the growing presence of motorized bikes has introduced new risks tied to speed and weight.
“These devices go much faster, and they’re obviously much heavier… the legal e-bike class 3 goes 25 miles per hour, but these e-motos… can go sometimes 60, 70, 80 mph,” said Nolan Oehrke of BikeWalkKC.
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