LEWES, Del.- Bikers are sprinkled across Lewes during the summer and so are police who could pull them over. However, they're not issuing citations.
"If we see a kid following all of the bike laws, wearing a helmet, following the proper rules, we would stop and have a friendly interaction with them where we actually give them a ticket," says Lewes Police Chief Tom Spell. That ticket is for a free ice cream cone at Dairy Queen, Two Dips, or King's Ice Cream. Sydney and Adin Stern of Bethesda, Maryland say they don't need a reward to wear their helmet because they know the risks. Adin recalls a time when he took a hard fall. "I lost control and I fell off, but the helmet hit the ground," he says. "The helmet broke, but then it saved me." This program takes place during the summer months to educate both bikers who live here and those who visit. "There's been a great influx in bike activity in Lewes," says Spell. "We're a summer, tourist-driven, vacation-driven town where a lot of people bike especially on the beach side." "The Lewes Bicycle and Pedestrian Advisory Committee and the Lewes Police Department started sponsoring this program about six years ago. Spell says that more people have found out about it recently through social media. Now Mac Shanahan from New York is hoping he'll get some ice cream for scooping up his helmet before he came to the beach. "The helmets protect people," says the 6-year-old. For Shanahan, the Stern's and others, this program is a sweet summer treat for biking with a helmet on top. Officers can give out the ice cream tickets while patrolling on foot, on bike, or in a police car. Spell says they've given out several hundred this summer.
