A pedestrian was struck and killed by a pickup truck early Friday on the westbound Santa Monica (10) Freeway just east of the Harbor (110) Freeway interchange in Los Angeles, triggering a two-hour SigAlert that snarled one of the region's busiest commuter corridors before sunrise.
The crash was reported at 3:59 a.m., according to MyNewsLA.com. A California Highway Patrol spokesperson said the incident was initially reported as a vehicle striking a pedestrian, and the agency confirmed the collision involved a pickup truck. One person died in the crash, though details on the victim's identity and the exact circumstances leading up to the collision were not immediately available.
The California Highway Patrol issued a SigAlert that closed lanes 2 and 3 of the westbound freeway, and the alert remained in effect until 6:32 a.m. A SigAlert is officially defined by CHP as any unplanned incident that shuts down at least one lane of traffic for 30 minutes or longer, a system first created in Los Angeles in 1955 by radio executive Loyd C. Sigmon, according to Snopes.
Why a Pedestrian Was on the Freeway Remains Unclear
It remains unknown why the pedestrian was on the freeway at that hour. Under California Vehicle Code Section 21960, pedestrians and non-motorized traffic are generally barred from designated freeways, though the law carries a specific exception allowing a driver or passenger of a disabled vehicle to walk to the nearest exit on their side of the highway to seek help or repairs, per Justia Law. Whether that exception applies here, or whether some other emergency put the victim on the roadway, has not been addressed by investigators.
The stretch of freeway where the crash happened carries outsized importance for the region. The Santa Monica Freeway functions as a primary east-west corridor across central Los Angeles, serving hundreds of thousands of daily commuters and connecting to the Harbor Freeway at the Dosan Ahn Chang Ho Interchange, according to the Los Angeles Times. A national traffic analytics study by INRIX has ranked the Interstate 10 corridor near the Interstate 110 interchange among the ten most congested road segments in the entire country, meaning even a brief closure at that junction can ripple across the broader freeway grid.
Pre-Dawn Hours Carry Outsized Risk for Pedestrians
The timing of the crash fits a pattern researchers have documented across the state. An analysis of CHP collision data compiled by UC Berkeley SafeTREC found that roughly 75% of fatal pedestrian crashes in California happen during nighttime and pre-dawn hours, between 6 p.m. and 6 a.m., when visibility is lowest and drivers have the least time to react.
The stakes are especially high in Los Angeles County, which recorded 273 pedestrian traffic fatalities in 2023, more than any other county in the state, according to state collision records. Statewide, pedestrian deaths totaled 1,106 that year, accounting for more than 27% of all traffic-related fatalities in California, per data from the California Office of Traffic Safety. In the city of Los Angeles alone, collision records compiled by the Los Angeles Police Department showed 290 total traffic deaths in 2025, with more than 150 of them involving pedestrians, marking the third straight year that traffic fatalities outpaced homicides in the city.
Nationally, the trend has shown modest recent improvement without reversing a longer climb. The Governors Highway Safety Association estimated that drivers struck and killed 7,148 pedestrians across the country in 2024, a 4.3% drop from the prior year but still a 19% increase over eight years.
City Has Mapped Its Riskiest Streets
Los Angeles transportation officials have long tracked where these crashes cluster. The Los Angeles Department of Transportation has identified a High Injury Network representing just 6% of city street miles that accounts for roughly 65% to 70% of all severe and fatal crashes involving pedestrians and cyclists, part of the city's broader effort to target infrastructure fixes at the most dangerous corridors.
Friday's crash marks at least the fourth fatal pre-dawn incident on the 10 Freeway corridor that Hoodline has covered in recent months, following a fatal westbound crash near Vermont in August, a fatal solo pickup truck crash in Mid-City that same month, a fatal pedestrian collision near the Normandie on-ramp in May, and a five-vehicle pileup near Crenshaw in March. No further details on the pickup truck driver or the identity of the victim in Friday's crash had been released as of this report.
