A driver died early Saturday when a green pickup truck crashed alone on the eastbound Santa Monica (10) Freeway just west of La Brea Avenue in the Mid-City area of Los Angeles, triggering a lane closure that lasted more than three hours. The crash happened around 2:26 a.m., according to authorities.
California Highway Patrol officials said the truck was traveling eastbound when the single-vehicle crash occurred, killing one person, as reported by MyNewsLA.com. No information about the victim had been released as of the report. A CHP spokesperson relayed the crash location and time to the outlet, but did not disclose what caused the truck to crash, leaving open questions about whether speed, mechanical failure, or impairment played a role.
Freeway Shut Down for Hours
CHP issued a SigAlert at 2:56 a.m. that closed the No. 3, 4, and 5 lanes of the freeway, according to the same account. The alert was cancelled at 6:20 a.m., reopening the lanes to the more than 250,000 vehicles that typically pass through this stretch of I-10 each day, per data cited by Santa Monica Traffic Cameras. A SigAlert is the official designation CHP uses for any unplanned incident that shuts down one or more lanes for at least 30 minutes, a system that traces back to 1955 and Los Angeles radio executive Loyd C. Sigmon, according to the Los Angeles Almanac.
Another Predawn Fatality on the Same Corridor
This is not the first deadly early-morning incident along this stretch of freeway in recent memory. Three weeks earlier, a pedestrian was struck and killed near Vermont Avenue around 3:45 a.m. on August 3, in a crash Hoodline previously reported also triggered a multi-lane closure. In December 2025, CHP investigated a separate deadly collision between Fairfax and La Brea avenues in Mid-City, where witness reports suggested illegal street racing between two drivers may have been a factor, according to FOX 11. And in August 2022, CBS Los Angeles reported that 67-year-old Robert Brown was struck and killed while walking in the eastbound lanes of the I-10 near La Brea Avenue around 4 a.m., per a CHP report relayed at the time.
Why the Overnight Hours Are So Dangerous
The timing of Saturday's crash lines up with a broader pattern researchers have identified across Los Angeles County. A 2026 countywide traffic safety analysis of more than 204,000 crashes from 2021 to 2025, using CHP SWITRS data, found that 2 a.m. is statistically the single most dangerous hour to drive, with a 5.03% fatality rate per crash and alcohol involvement in 39.4% of incidents, according to Jacoby & Meyers. Nationally, single-vehicle collisions like Saturday's account for 52% of all motor vehicle crash fatalities, per 2024 data published by the Insurance Institute for Highway Safety.
Los Angeles County alone accounts for roughly 19% of California's traffic fatalities, contributing to more than 3,800 fatal crashes recorded statewide each year, according to figures compiled by Maison Law. Under California Vehicle Code Section 16000, any driver involved in a collision resulting in death, injury, or significant property damage is required to file an SR-1 report with the DMV within 10 days, regardless of fault or whether law enforcement investigated, according to the California Department of Motor Vehicles.
The Santa Monica Freeway has carried traffic through this corridor since its central section opened in March 1962, completing an eastern bypass loop around Downtown Los Angeles, according to historical records from California Highways. More than six decades later, the corridor remains one of the busiest — and, based on this recent string of predawn fatalities, one of the more perilous — freeway stretches in the region. CHP has not released further details on Saturday's crash, and the driver's identity remains unknown.
