Queens Boulevard Pedestrian Killed — Driver Not Charged

A Queens pedestrian who was run down and critically injured by a driver in broad daylight on a notorious stretch of Queens Boulevard has died as a result of his injuries, police said on Monday.

According to cops, Jaipaul Persaud, 55, had been crossing the former “Boulevard of Death” from south to north at around 1:40 p.m. on Friday when the driver of a 2013 Hyundai slammed into him as she made a left turn from 84th Drive. Both the driver and the pedestrian had the light — but it is state law that drivers must yield to pedestrians.

Yet the 33-year-old driver was not charged. She stayed at the scene while Persaud, who lived in nearby Jamaica, was taken to Jamaica Hospital Medical Center, where he died on Sunday. Streetsblog asked the NYPD for an update on charges and was told that the investigation is ongoing.

Persaud is the 21st pedestrian killed so far this year on New York City streets, down from 26 last year, just as the pandemic kicked in. Twenty-one pedestrians is the lowest number in this portion of a year since the same number of deaths was recorded 2015. Though lower than previous years, it still means that scores of pedestrians will be killed by the end of 2021, the last year of Mayor de Blasio’s tenure.

The stretch of Queens Boulevard where Persaud was killed is not part of the city’s stalled effort to change the fate of that dangerous roadway — one last phase of which remains to be completed. As a result, it remains an area of constant danger to pedestrians. In 2019, just in the five blocks on either side of the crash scene, there were 161 crashes in 2019, injuring one cyclist, four pedestrians and 19 motorists, according to data compiled by Crashmapper.