Students lined up in White Plaza yesterday to pick up a free bike light and Jamba Juice at the ASSU Bike Light Extravaganza. In the first day of the three-day extravaganza, the Undergraduate Senate distributed over 200 free lights and smoothies to all students who attended the event between noon and 1 p.m.

Enlarge
#gallery http://daily.stanford.org/image/full/8160
Maggie Skortcheva

Hundreds of students lined up yesterday for the ASSU Senate’s Bike Light Extravaganza. Free bike lights and Jamba Juice ensure there will be crowds today and tomorrow as well in White Plaza.

Last year’s Undergraduate Senate focused on bike safety, discussing ways to promote safe biking on campus.

“We thought it would be a great idea to do the [Bike Light Extravaganza],” said ASSU President Hershey Avula ‘08. “We had talked about how students were lacking bike lights, and that is a big cause for accidents on campus.”

After discussing the importance of encouraging bike safety last spring, the Senate allocated funds toward giving students free bike lights. However, after consulting with the incoming Senate, both groups decided to wait and hold the event this fall.

“We set a certain portion of our budget from last year’s Senate for this year’s Senate,” Avula said. “We thought the most opportune time to pass out bike lights would be at the beginning of the year, especially with new freshmen on campus.”

Some students attended the Extravaganza with the goal of avoiding bike tickets, which Stanford Police issue for biking without a headlight at night.

“I don’t want to get stopped by the police, but I also don’t want to pay for [a light],” said Christopher Williams ‘10. “So, this solves all my problems.”

Safety concerns also inspired students to stop by the tables in White Plaza yesterday.

“Even though the line is long, it is worth it for safety, because I bike at night to review sessions and office hours,” Quynh-Anh Nguyen ‘10 said. “I live near FroSoCo, and Santa Teresa has a lot of cars so it isn’t safe to bike without a bike light.”

Turnout for the event was higher than ASSU senators expected.

“We gave out a little over 200 bike lights,” said Senator Vang Kou Khang ‘08. “It was a little bit more than we wanted to hand out. We had wanted to cap it at 200 because it is a three-day event.”

Given yesterday’s high turnout, the senators decided to place a new order for more bike lights in order to meet the demand of students.

The senators consider the event to be a trial for future programs.

“The purpose wasn’t to ensure that every student got a light,” Khang said “The idea is that this is a pilot program to see how successful programs like this will be.

“Yesterday was a definite success,” he added. “On my way out [last night], I saw a bunch of people with bike lights, and more than half of them had ASSU stickers on them.”

The ASSU will continue to distribute free bike lights today and tomorrow, from noon to 1 p.m. in White Plaza.