Student hit by car near pedestrian overpass

Cited for not using crosswalk

An SIUC student was injured after being struck by a car Thursday afternoon while trying to cross South Illinois Avenue less than 1/2 block from a pedestrian overpass.

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Richard Charles Simmers, 26, Carbondale, was transported to the emergency room at Carbondale Memorial Hospital after he was hit by a vehicle driven by Matthew J. Meyer, 24, Carbondale, at about 3:32 p.m. at the beginning of the construction area near McAndrew Stadium. Hospital officials refused to release Simmers’ condition.

Meyer, a junior at SIUC, was the driver of the white Kia Sephia that hit Simmers, who is a junior in geology. Meyer said he was on his way home when the man stepped out into traffic, and his vehicle’s passenger side rear view mirror clipped Simmers. Both men live in the 1900 block of Evergreen Terrace.

A strip of gray cloth was dangling from the mirror’s housing and the mirror’s face was missing.

Meyer said he was already slowing down to turn right onto Lincoln Drive to go home and was traveling between 20 and 25 miles per hour at the time of the accident. He said Simmers looked his direction when his car was passing Davies Gymnasium, but looked the other direction and never turned his head back.

A passenger in the car, who refused to be identified, said the man was conscious after the accident and Meyer said it did not look like he had serious injuries. Meyer said the man’s ankle was swollen.

“He definitely broke his ankle,” Meyer said.

Meyer said it looked like the man’s ankle was the only place hit by the car, but said it happened “too fast to tell.”

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Simmers was cited by the Carbondale Police Department for crossing at a location other than a crosswalk.

Pedestrian safety on and near campus has been under scrutiny since the September 2001 death of SIUC student Anne F. Coleman, who died of injuries sustained after she was struck by a vehicle while riding her bike through a crosswalk, and a series of pedestrian related traffic accidents that occurred through spring 2002.

Reporter Greg Cima can be reached at [email protected]