UNL student says she was almost run over by administrator

LINCOLN, Neb. (KLKN) – A University of Nebraska-Lincoln student wrote an article saying a campus administrator “almost ran me over.”

The story quickly became popular on the Daily Nebraskan website, but the author says there’s a deeper meaning to it.

Megan Buffington, a senior at UNL, said she had a bit of a scare recently when she was giving her mother and grandmother a tour of campus.

Buffington said her mother was only a few steps into the road when a driver had to quickly jam on the brakes. That was when she she says they saw the official driving toward them.

Buffington, the senior opinion editor at the Daily Nebraskan, said that originally, she didn’t intend to turn the situation into a story.

“I thought of the headline first, and I was like, ‘Oh, that’s not really worth an article,” Buffington said. “Then I was thinking about it more and realized that campus walkability actually could be improved.”

She is not the only one who has dealt with this issue.

Aleigha Vanlaningham said she is cautious now because of incidents in the past.

“I feel like I’ve never had any close calls, but definitely, I’ve had to stop before because I know that car is not going to stop for me,” Vanlaningham said.

Buffington said that the road they were trying to cross didn’t have any stop signs for drivers and that street parking made it difficult for pedestrians to see traffic.

Vanlaningham said it can be hard for drivers to tell where students will walk.

“The main problem is just people don’t realize that some places are crosswalks,” Vanlaningham said. “I think there’s some places that do a good job of having, like, flashing pedestrian signs, so I think that would be helpful at every crosswalk to catch the driver’s attention.”

Buffington does admit that the responsibility doesn’t fall entirely on the drivers.

“I think it’s students’ fault too,” Buffington said. “A lot of people are on their phones and just not paying attention to their surroundings. So pedestrians have a responsibility to be aware of that, too.”

Buffington said she wanted to put the story out there to bring awareness to the problem.

She had one final message for the administrator.

“I didn’t mean it,” Buffington said. “I know you didn’t really run me over. It’s OK.”