I was deeply moved by the recent death of a fellow Stanford graduate student, Yichao Wang, after a bike crash on Feb 3. The tragic accident caught my attention for two reasons: first, because it involved another Stanford student, young and only 25-years old, and riding on exactly the same route along University Avenue that is transited every day by hundreds of other students, including myself. More importantly, I was struck by the fact that it may have been possible to prevent this fatality by the simple act of wearing a helmet, an act about which we are constantly being reminded how important it is, yet in which many of us still don’t engage in. While I understand that the emotional wounds of those close to Wang may still be too fresh for me to use his example to talk about bike safety, I also believe that it is precisely in these days shortly after Wang’s death, that an attempt to remind Stanford students about the importance of wearing a helmet will have the greatest impact.

There are three reasons for why I believe that Stanford students don’t wear helmets, and three suggestions I have for overcoming them:

1. Inconvenience: A helmet is big bulky item, and carrying it to class, to work or to the dorm can be a major inconvenience. One thing I started doing to deal with this issue is simply clipping the helmet directly to the bike and leaving it there while the bike is resting on the stand. That way I will automatically pick the helmet up next time I ride and will not be bothered by the inconvenience of having to carry it around. As for helmet theft, I have not yet heard of such an occurrence on the Stanford campus, especially if helmets can be bought for a mere $20 at the Bike Shop.

2. Reputation: The fear of being classified as a geek led many of us to refuse wearing a helmet (until a few months ago that included me). My hunch is that this is the main reason for why so many students still don’t wear helmets. The solution, and this may not be easy: get over the fear of damaging your reputation, be an adult, and do what you think is right. After all, aren’t our lives (yes, this is about life and death!) that much more important than what others think about our looks?

3. Lack of awareness: We all have heard that bike crashes can lead to serious accidents, and we all know that by wearing a helmet we could prevent fatal consequences of such accidents. But how often do we hear of someone dying from a bike crash, especially if it’s someone who works and rides on our own “safe” campus? Not very often. I believe that on an emotional level few of us have connected the dots from bike riding to bike accidents to brain trauma to death, and that because of this emotional disconnect we have failed at taking bike riding seriously enough to wear a helmet. Because of the rarity of instances when someone at Stanford dies from a bike crash, I recommend that this accident in particular be turned into a valuable opportunity to bring the consequences of insufficient bike safety bluntly and directly to our hearts.

This final point leads me to a short suggestion for the Department of Public Safety: in the next few days, maybe next week, and while the memory of this accident is still fresh in our minds, send this very short survey to every Stanford student, asking four questions:

1. Did you know that a 25-year old Stanford student died after a bike crash on University Avenue this month?

2. If yes, did you know that he was not wearing a helmet?

3. Do you ride a bicycle on campus?

4. If yes, do you wear a helmet?

Maybe just by answering these four rhetorical questions we can be reminded of how easy it could be to prevent another accident like Yichao Wang’s.

-Andreas Ehrensberger, graduate student in biophysics