A five-car collision on the northbound 405 Freeway near Bel Air killed one person and left another with minor injuries Monday, prompting the California Highway Patrol to close two lanes just north of the Sunset Boulevard exit. Paramedics treated the injured victim at the scene while firefighters urged drivers to seek an alternate route as the crash snarled traffic through one of the busiest stretches of freeway in the country.
The Los Angeles Fire Department reported that the collision killed one person, according to CBS News. CHP officers closed the carpool lane and the No. 2 lane on the northbound 405 near Bel Air, and officers said the closures would remain in place for about two hours as crews worked the scene.
Lanes Reopen After Hours-Long Slog Through the Pass
Under California Highway Patrol lane numbering standards, Lane 1 refers to the innermost carpool lane and Lane 2 is the adjacent general traffic lane, according to California Highways. Losing both of those inner lanes north of Sunset Boulevard meant northbound commuters were funneled into fewer open lanes through the narrow Sepulveda Pass, a bottleneck that has snarled traffic during past incidents in the same area.
The Sunset Boulevard overcrossing itself functions as a critical arterial hub linking West Los Angeles, Bel Air and Brentwood, according to the Pacific Palisades Community Council, which means lane closures right at that exit tend to ripple across Westside streets as drivers hunt for detours. Firefighters on scene urged motorists to use a different route entirely rather than wait out the closure.
A Corridor Already Under Construction Strain
The crash landed in the middle of an active $143.7 million Caltrans pavement rehabilitation project spanning 10.2 miles of the 405 through the Sepulveda Pass, a project that already imposes nightly lane reductions between 9 p.m. and 6 a.m., per Patch's reporting on the corridor's ongoing construction. That overnight work adds another layer of disruption to a freeway that Caltrans traffic data shows carries somewhere between 278,000 and nearly 400,000 vehicles a day, making it one of the most heavily traveled stretches of highway in the nation.
Any unplanned lane closure lasting 30 minutes or longer on a California freeway triggers an official SigAlert bulletin under CHP procedures, a system that originated in Los Angeles back in the 1950s, according to LAist. CHP data compiled by Crosstown found the 405 Freeway recorded 284 SigAlerts in a single year, ranking it among the top three most disrupted freeways in Los Angeles County.
A Stretch of Freeway With a Recent History of Crashes
The Bel Air stretch of the 405 has seen serious incidents before. Just weeks earlier, an overnight crash near Bel Air Crest Road sent a vehicle off the southbound 405 embankment and sparked a brush fire, forcing emergency lane closures between Skirball Center Drive and Getty Center Drive, as captured by OnScene.TV. Around the same time, a big rig blew a tire on the northbound 405 in the Sepulveda Pass and crashed into an embankment, blocking multiple lanes and backing up traffic for miles, according to footage shared by ABC7.
Fatal 405 crashes have become a grim pattern across the corridor in recent weeks. A motorcyclist was killed on the 405 in Sherman Oaks in late August, an incident Hoodline previously reported backed up traffic for miles across the San Fernando Valley. Days before that, another motorcyclist died in a late-night crash near Palms that shut down 405 lanes for hours, and a rollover earlier in August near Van Nuys sent five people to the hospital.
California law requires every driver involved in a collision that causes property damage, injury or death to stop immediately, notify law enforcement and render aid, under Vehicle Code Section 20002 — a requirement that carries felony hit-and-run exposure for anyone who flees the scene. Investigators have not said what caused Monday's five-car pileup, and the identity of the person killed had not been released.
