UPDATE: This story has been edited on Friday to reflect the victim’s identity and further details on the crash. Additionally, the term “jaywalking” has been changed in reference to a previous pedestrian-involved collision along Martin Luther King Jr. Boulevard.

Late Thursday night, Chapel Hill Police reported a pedestrian died after being struck by a vehicle on Martin Luther King Jr. Boulevard.

Police initially got a call at 9:14 p.m. reporting a person in traffic on the road by Perkins Drive, near the Chapel Hill North shopping center just south of I-40. A release from the town said the individual was struck by a vehicle as officers were responding to the call. The individual, who police identified on Friday afternoon as 61-year-old Thomas Filter, later died on the scene.

A spokesperson for the Chapel Hill Police Department told Chapelboro the driver of the vehicle stopped and stayed on-scene after striking Filter, who was a Chapel Hill resident. The driver is not expected to face charges stemming from the collision.

Martin Luther King Jr. Boulevard has been the site of several pedestrian-related collisions — including near Perkins Drive. One pedestrian was struck while walking in the road during late 2019. A few months later, in February 2020, a vehicle struck and killed a pedestrian near the street’s intersection of Homestead Road. In 2018, motorists killed two pedestrians: one near Critz Drive and another near Westminster Drive.

From 2017-2021, the Town of Chapel Hill says it has reported 192 crashes between vehicles and bicycles or vehicles and pedestrians. In that time, five of the bicyclists or pedestrians died, while another 11 experienced serious injury. Additional statistics can be found at the town’s Vision Zero page, which is part of Chapel Hill’s resolution to “eliminate traffic deaths and serious injuries by 2031.”

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