Car Hits Pedestrian on Union Street Monday Night

A car hit a man while he was jaywalking across Union Street on Monday night, fire officials said.  

According to an FDNY spokesman, the pedestrian who got hit only suffered minor injuries and refused to go to the hospital. However, he did receive medical attention in an ambulance before leaving the scene.

At around 6:45 p.m., the man walked into the middle of Union Street, between Sixth and Seventh avenues, to go to his car on the other side without using the crosswalk. While he was in the middle of the street, a car driving westbound tried to stop, but ended up hitting the man and he was thrown against the windshield.

The man got up off the car right away, but then sat down until the ambulance came seeming dazed and confused. He never lost consciousness, the FDNY spokesman said. The windshield cracked on impact, but did not shatter.  

“I wasn’t going fast, driving under the speed limit, but between it being dark and the light rain I didn’t see him until he was a few feet in front of my bumper,” said the driver, Charlie Shaw. “I tried to stop, but the roads were slick.”

The driver said the pedestrian wasn’t looking in his direction before the collision.

“Under the circumstances, it could have been worse,” Shaw said.

The accident happened in front of the Park Slope Food Co-op, an area where witnesses said is a dangerous strip of Union Street since many people leave the grocer and cross to get in their car or on their bike.

“I heard tires screeching and then saw the man on the windshield,” Mitch Bernstein, a Co-op member, said on the scene Monday night.

Bernstein said that this accident should be a lesson to pedestrians.

“People should be crossing at the light,” Bernstein said. “Especially here in front of the Co-op, if they don’t look both ways they could get hit.”

Bernstein then repeated an old saying, one that he says people should practice more in order to stay out of harms way.

“Cross at the green, not in between,” Bernstein said.