How to give away lights to cyclists without lights? My objective is simple enough... I want people to be safe when out riding.  Too often on my way to work I often see cyclists in the dark and rain without lights.  When I see them I try and offer them an extra light I keep handy, just in case.

The problem is I have only been successful two times over the course of a full year. Most of the time, male or female, young or old, I am told that they either have one some where or they forgot their batteries or some other crazy excuse.  I have even offered free batteries to no avail. 

One time it took me running into the same fellow three times on a dark forest track before he would accept an old set of trail lights I had kicking about. (And of course the next day my newer replacement lights died - talk about Murphy's Law!)  The only other time, I felt like the person was begrudgingly allowing me to mount a light on their bike (they were riding in the dark down a busy rural road with no street lights).

In theory this should be a simple exercise, but I am failing miserably.
I know my approach is important so I focus on being friendly and non-judgemental (no one likes being called out).  I don't tell them what they should or should not be doing, I only talk about how the conditions make it hard to see and that I have some lights they can have.

Question

What is going on here?   Am I missing some sort of psychological/human nature angle? Should I be taking a completely different approach?  

Note: I am unclear if the bicycles stack is the most appropriate stack for the question, but figured I would give it a go here first.



Update

I wanted to thank everyone for their ideas and feedback.I am currently shopping the idea of a central light give-away with various local sponsors. The best target will be in the area around the major city I live in as it has the highest density of cyclists.

That said, I actually work out in a smaller community, which will likely be missed in any give away due to the lower volume of cyclists.  So I am continuing to work on my technique for the ones I encounter here.  Tonight I was able to give one to a older stealth cyclist who refused me in the past (and who was actually the impetus for this post).  I just extra time striking up a conversation and was  a bit more persuasive in my sell job. Also I made an extra effort to communicate that there were no strings were attached (mainly in my tone and some small comments about the origins of the lights - Moᶎ's "unknown provenance."  I will also see if a small light gift certificate is an easier give-away.
We have had much more success advertising it and doing it through a local bike shop or bike group. Once each, so far, that I've done.

I think the psychology behind refusing a gift from a stranger is much as Criggie says. You're some random dude approaching people at night offering second hand lights of unknown provenance. Why are you doing that? What's going on? Especially because you're also criticising them "you, the idiot without lights, stop and let me tell you how to do it properly". Yeah, nah.

FWIW, I have your same issue with chain lube. Occasionally I'll ride up behind someone whose bike is in mortal agony and say "I have chain lube in my pannier, wanna stop and let me fix that noise for you" and hardly anyone will accept.



The first time I was involved in a lighting give-away was when the Critical Mass fund I kept had more than a thousand dollar surplus and I decided I should do something with it. Critical Mass is an anarchy, so it really was my decision. While chatting with the owner of a bike shop at Mass we came up with the idea of buying a bunch of cheap-but-reasonable lights and giving them away. We talked to the local cycling promotion bureacrazy and they agreed that given 6-12 months to get themselves organised they could help promote it. We declined. I handed over the cash (my $1000, about $500 from the shop for lights that wholesaled at ~$5/pair when bought by the boxful), the shop ordered some of boxes of lights, I printed up a few posters and we put them up in the shop and along the bike route we were targeting. Then one winter night we set up a stall on the footpath next to the bike route, got 3-4 people to man it, and gave away about 300 sets of lights over 3 nights. We explicitly didn't stop people getting more than one set, but we did refuse a couple of people who were obviously going "free stuff, give me everything".

That was very popular, and was sufficiently effective at promoting the bike shop that the owner went "I can spend $500 on a 1/4 page ad in bike magazine, or $500 on free lights... the lights work much better". Even people who didn't need or want the free lights thought better of the shop for the give-away.

So a couple of years later the shop owner did a deal with the cycling promotion unit in the local council or state government or somewhere (I wasn't involved with that bit). The promotion people advertised it and put in half the light fund, the shop ditto, and we/they gave away another few hundred lights (I helped with this bit). The location was picked to suit the promotion people, but it was busy and also the site of a new cycle route. Again, very popular and effective.

The difference is that we had an official-looking banner and multiple people, plus the signage/people were known entities. People will take a free gift from a local businessman, or "that guy from Critical Mass" who they see regularly, much more willingly that someone they've never seen before. It's about attributing motivation. "it's a bike shop promotion" or "that guy is nuts about bike community" is easy and people will just run with it. Having to think about why you're trying to press lights on them is hard.