A two-vehicle crash on rain-soaked Rosemead Boulevard near Durfee Avenue sent one car careening down an adjacent riverbed and another slamming into a roadside food stand on Sunday morning, injuring three people. The Los Angeles County Fire Department reported the incident around 10:40 a.m. in the area straddling Whittier and Montebello, according to officials.
According to ABC7 Los Angeles, a black Honda and a white Tesla both ended up in the riverbed after the crash, with one driver reportedly driving over the embankment as the other car struck the food stand. Officials could not immediately specify whether the three injured people were patrons of the food stand or occupants of the crashed vehicles, the station reported. That ambiguity has since been resolved: California Highway Patrol incident logs cited by MyNewsLA confirm the street vendor and pedestrians were struck on the roadside by the careening vehicle, sustaining minor injuries, rather than being occupants inside either car.
The slick conditions that likely contributed to the crash trace back to an unusual weather system. Outer rain bands from Hurricane Marie, churning off the coast of Mexico, dropped between a quarter-inch and a full inch of rain across Los Angeles County on Sunday morning, according to CBS Los Angeles. Tropical rain events of that scale are rare for Southern California this early in September, and the sudden wet pavement on a major arterial road like Rosemead Boulevard created hazardous driving conditions heading into the crash.
Road Closed While Crews Pulled Driver From Riverbed
The California Highway Patrol closed Rosemead Boulevard south of Durfee Avenue starting at 10:55 a.m. so firefighters could extract the driver from the riverbed and clear the scene, per the same MyNewsLA account. Rosemead Boulevard is a primary regional corridor connecting Whittier, Montebello and South El Monte, and the closure disrupted travel through the unincorporated Los Angeles County area near the borders of those cities. The exact condition of the driver pulled from the riverbed has not been detailed in available reports.
Open questions remain about what set off the initial two-car collision, including whether speed or hydroplaning on the rain-slicked road played a role, and whether the food stand was operating within the setback distances required by local vending rules. Under Los Angeles County sidewalk vending regulations, vendors must keep a four-foot clear path for pedestrians and are barred from operating within 18 inches of a street curb or within 10 feet of a driveway, according to guidance published by the City of Long Beach. Those setback rules exist precisely to separate vendors from the kind of vehicle-versus-pedestrian scenario that unfolded Sunday.
State Law Protects Vendors, But Doesn't Erase Traffic Risk
California's Safe Sidewalk Vending Act, known as SB 946 and enacted in 2018, decriminalized sidewalk vending statewide and limits how much cities and counties can restrict vendors, allowing regulation only on objective public health, safety or welfare grounds, per the City of Agoura Hills. That protection has coincided with local efforts to make vending safer rather than rarer. In January, Los Angeles County and City officials launched a $2.8 million program distributing more than 280 free, health-code-compliant food carts to eligible sidewalk vendors, aimed at improving safety standards and helping vendors meet local requirements, as reported by CBS Los Angeles.
Whittier has seen its share of vehicle and vendor safety incidents in recent years. In July 2024, a propane tank exploded inside a food truck on Greenleaf Avenue in Whittier, injuring five people, two of them critically, according to the Los Angeles Times. And just two weeks before Sunday's crash, a two-car rollover at Telegraph Road and Biella Way in Whittier sent 10 people to the hospital, including three in critical condition, the Times also reported.
The Sunday crash adds to a broader pattern of traffic danger across Los Angeles County. Traffic fatalities have outpaced homicides in the region in recent years, with collisions killing 290 people in 2025, according to prior Hoodline reporting. That toll underscores why vulnerable road users, from pedestrians to street vendors working just feet from moving traffic, remain a persistent concern for local safety officials.
