Love Your Brain—Protect your most valuable asset at Stanford!

Stanford women’s swimming team committed to wear a helmet for every ride. A recent bike crash involving a Stanford swimmer inspired the team’s commitment to bike safety.

Stanford is a designated Platinum-level Bicycle Friendly University by the League of American Bicyclists, with 13,000 bicyclists on the campus daily. We wish we could say all of them wear bicycle helmets and follow the rules of the road. Unfortunately, many students don’t recognize the serious risk they are taking by not wearing a bicycle helmet.

In partnership with Stanford’s Department of Public Safety and the Campus Bike Shop we have multiple programs and promotions to encourage bike helmet use. All Stanford bicyclists are eligible for a subsidy that makes purchasing a bike helmet affordable. Participating freshman dorms have a special FROSH Bike Helmet Subsidy Program, which enables freshmen to purchase a bicycle helmet for just $5 each. The remaining $20 is subsidized by sponsoring departments: Parking & Transportation Services, Public Safety, Risk Management and Residential Education.

Provided below are links to more information that will help you see why wearing a helmet is the smart thing to do and to learn about a program that could reward you for wearing a helmet!

• Did you know that wearing a bike helmet can reduce your risk of head injury by 85 percent, according to David Spain, chief of trauma and critical care surgery at Stanford University Medical Center?
• Check out Love Your Brain! (PDF, 718 KB), three Stanford articles to inspire and motivate you to wear a bike helmet for every ride, even short trips.
• Find out why Ben Lauing, ’11, started wearing a helmet and why he thinks it’s sexy. “Get a Helmet and a Life” op-ed from the Stanford Daily
• Book a Free Bike Safety Road Show for your dorm or student group. Sprocket Man joins us to review bike safety tips, demo how to lock a bike, show proper helmet fit, and more. Includes free bike tune-ups!

Need encouragement from your colleagues or campus leaders?

• “The act of putting the helmet on made me feel unbearably self-conscious...But then...I thought about every judgment people could make about me, and realized that they were all ridiculous. And really, am I the kind of person who would prioritize what people think of me over my own safety and well-being? Absolutely not.” Ben Lauing, ‘11
• On Oct. 30, 2012, Provost John Etchemendy and Medical School Dean Philip Pizzo stood on the corner of Santa Teresa Street and Lomita Drive with members of the Department of Public Safety flagging down bareheaded bikers. One deputy passed out Halloween candy. Another, discount coupons for bicycle helmets.
• The Leland Stanford Junior Marching Band encouraged students to wear helmets during a halftime show at this year's Homecoming football game. Band members ran in a giant circle, narrowly averting crashes, while the announcer encouraged freshmen to "Wear a helmet, and walk all large projects to your classroom."
• “I wear a helmet when biking, skating and riding a scooter because of the simple risk mitigation analysis of doing so. The cost of wearing a helmet is very low, but the amount of risk it eliminates is extreme in terms of mitigating potentially life-long debilitation. The choice is pretty clear: Wear a helmet!” Tony Pratkanis ’15