A woman who was learning to drive learned a very valuable lesson on Friday - know which way you're going. She found that out the hard way after her lesson ended up going very wrong very fast.

The student driver was in a plaza parking lot at 852 Markham Road between Lawrence and Ellesmere around 3pm, and was trying to pull out of the space, when the car went into drive instead of reverse and smashed straight through the window of the My Choice Paan and Video store.

Three men were inside the establishment sitting at a table eating, when their de facto kitchen suddenly became a drive through. One of them had just taken his seat and barely got his first mouthful before the vehicle barreled through and hit him.

"We were just sitting down by the window and we were eating," recalls Juned Dadabhi. "Next thing we just hear a big bang noise and we start running. When we turn around we see a car ... right through the glass."

The man was rushed to hospital with non-life threatening injuries. But Dadabhi notes he didn't have much chance to avoid the onrushing vehicle. "His back was facing the window when the car really hit, so he got the most," he remembers.

"All of a sudden I heard a ... big shock and all I see is one of my friends just flew all the way across and he got unconscious for about 30, 40 seconds," adds Abdullah Khan, another man inside at the time. "And then I just picked him up and I looked at him. I'm like, 'everything all right?'"

Raj Patel was outside when the vehicle plowed in. "I see the lady in the driver's seat and the guy's in the passenger seat ... And I saw she looked in the mirror and she backed up and I took my eyes off her and after two or three minutes, I hear a tire raised up and I look back again and I see the front wheel going towards the curb and heading straight inside the store."

It's not clear if charges will be laid and there's no word on a damage estimate yet.