(via @NYC_DOT on Twitter)
If you’re planning to survive the L-pocalpyse by taking advantage of those new bike lanes and jumping on a two-wheeled steed for the first time, you’ll want to grab a helmet first. Biking in this town is not a breeze. (Especially when you get stuck behind an exhaust-spewing city bus– then there’s truly no breeze at all.) Lucky for you, the Department of Transportation is giving away free helmets this summer.
The DOT has hosted several dozen helmet giveaways since late 2016, and is also in the habit of giving out bike bells. (Now, if they’d only fix flat tires.) The next free-for-alls in the B+B zone will occur June 9, from 11am to 2:30pm, at the pedestrian triangle outside of Jefferson Market Library in Greenwich Village, and on June 23, from 2pm to 5:30pm, at Sara D. Roosevelt Park on the Lower East Side. DOT reps will give away helmets to anyone who signs a waiver and submits to a brief fitting lesson. Last month, over 260 people scored freebies; at an April event, the number was 750.
The helmets are emblazoned with logos for the city’s Vision Zero initiative to reduce pedestrian fatalities, but they don’t look all that dorky. Hell, one of them is even going for 70 bucks on eBay.