The woman was taken to The Queen's Medical Center in critical condition.

Sgt. Lorenzo Ridela, police traffic investigator, said speed appears to be a factor in the case and police have opened a negligent injury case. The 37-year-old driver of the vehicle was not arrested or charged yesterday.

State officials have said they will seek a new law this year to protect pedestrians in crosswalks, but accidents like yesterday's — those that occur outside the white lines — are far more common in Hawai'i.

Only 19 percent of the 57 pedestrians killed in Hawai'i in a recent two-year span were in a crosswalk at the time of the accident, according to an Advertiser review of traffic records compiled by the federal government.

Among the most common risk factors are an elderly pedestrian trying to cross a busy road and a driver who is speeding and does not have enough time to react, the records show.

Yesterday, the driver remained in the parking lot of nearby Market City Shopping Center while police investigated. He said he didn't see the woman until he was "right up on her."

"That was someone's mom, someone's grandma," said the man, who did not want to give his name.

Roy Morita, a dishwasher at Sekiya's, was sitting in his car and about to start work when he saw the incident.

"I saw the blue car, he was driving kind of fast. Then I heard a screech and then I saw the blue car hit the woman," Morita said.

Morita said he was horrified by the incident. "The impact was so loud that all of my co-workers (in the restaurant) could hear the impact," he said.

Ridela said the woman had nearly made it across the busy street when she was struck. He encouraged drivers to obey speed limits and to slow down.

"Speeding is a problem. It's one of the biggest problems that's causing a lot of fatalities or major injuries," Ridela said. "So it goes without saying that people should slow down." The speed limit on Kaimuki Avenue is 25 mph.

Under a bill that Gov. Linda Lingle proposes, cars would have to come to a complete stop when a pedestrian enters a crosswalk on an undivided street. Under current laws, drivers have to stop only when a pedestrian is on the same side of the street as the car.