Sydney Simpkins was on the way to have dinner with her sister at Delaney’s restaurant in Westville Tuesday evening when a collision stopped her in her tracks.
She saw a Metro Taxi driver run a light at Whalley and Central, Simpkins said, then hit a man crossing the street. The collision occurred around 5:30 p.m.
“He hit him pretty hard,” Simpkins (pictured), who lives in Hamden, said at the scene. She described the victim as a “street person.” She said the cabbie “offered to drive him home.”
The police arrived and blocked off Central between Whalley and Fountain. A small crowd gathered to watch in the darkness as two officers interviewed the driver and witnesses. Meanwhile, a half-dozen emergency vehicles sped by on their way to what turned out to be a minor unrelated fire up the hill on Fountain Terrace.
The driver was parked in front of Delaney’s as police investigated the scene. He declined to discuss the incident and sought to avoid having his picture taken. The disheveled man he hit, sitting in the back seat, said he was doing fine.
Police spokesman Officer Joe Avery said the driver, who’s 27, had been traveling westbound on Whalley when he turned left onto Central and struck the pedestrian in the crosswalk. The 47-year-old pedestrian declined medical help. Police charged the driver with failure to yield to a pedestrian and failure to carry a driver’s license. Avery said the driver does have a license, but didn’t have it on him.