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University public safety officer Zeke Cunningham once told May Davis something that has stuck with her throughout her term as transportation coordinator of KU on Wheels.

What Cunningham said was in regards to SafeBus, a Student Senate initiative that began this year and provides free Friday and Saturday night transportation to university students with a valid KUID.

“He said that if we could keep one person from getting in the car after one too many drinks, then we’ll be doing our job,” Davis said. “We want to keep drunk drivers off the streets.”

Davis said that the majority of SafeBus’ riders are from around the Massachusetts Street area, and Tom Cox, the head of the subcommittee of the transportation board that created SafeBus last year, estimated that “quite a few hundred” students are served in the Massachusetts Street area every weekend.

He said that SafeBus had stops around Massachusetts Street but not on the street itself because “traffic is so slow,” he said. “But no matter where you are on Mass you won’t have to walk very far [to get to a stop].”

Cox also said that while “drinking and driving is obviously a problem in college towns” and that SafeBus is there to prevent drinking and driving from occurring, it serves other non-alcohol related purposes as well.

“It’s a way for students to get around,” he said. “Some students don’t have vehicles or don’t want to drive. It’s a college friendly weekend way of getting around.”