A 24-year-old woman was struck and killed while on the westbound Santa Monica (10) Freeway in the Mid-City area of Los Angeles last Friday night, just west of La Brea Avenue. The Los Angeles County Medical Examiner has since identified her as Kimberly Martinez, who sustained blunt force injuries in the collision.
According to MyNewsLA, a gray Honda Accord struck and killed Martinez around 10:03 p.m. on October 16, just west of La Brea Avenue. The driver of the Honda Accord remained at the scene, the outlet reported.
Los Angeles Fire Department personnel responded and performed CPR on Martinez near the freeway's center divide before she was pronounced dead at the scene.
Transportation Management Center Copied a SigAlert
Records from chpfatal.com show the Transportation Management Center copied a SigAlert at 10:32 p.m. that night, with lanes 1, 2 and 3 reported blocked roughly twenty minutes later as officers worked the scene near South La Brea Avenue. How long the SigAlert remained in effect, and when all lanes fully reopened, isn't detailed in those records.
The circumstances that put Martinez on the freeway itself remain unclear, and neither the identity of the Honda Accord's driver nor whether any citations or charges followed has been reported.
A Freeway With a Troubling History
This is not the first fatal pedestrian crash to shut down stretches of the 10 Freeway through central Los Angeles. In September, a pedestrian was struck and killed by a pickup truck on the westbound Santa Monica Freeway just east of the Harbor (110) Freeway interchange, an incident Hoodline reported triggered a two-hour SigAlert of its own.
Other recent incidents point to the same pattern. A fatal crash involving a pedestrian and multiple vehicles on the 10 Freeway near Vermont Avenue prompted an hourslong SigAlert and snarled the Pico-Union area's morning commute, according to KTLA, which reported that crash was called in at 3:45 a.m. and left all but one westbound lane closed. Separately, a pedestrian was killed after being struck by multiple vehicles on the eastbound 10 Freeway near the San Pedro Street off-ramp in downtown Los Angeles, with CHP officers finding the victim in the middle lanes and two lanes shut during the investigation, per CBS News.
The Numbers Behind the Danger
The 10 Freeway in Los Angeles County ranked eighth among California freeways for fatalities, with 14 deaths recorded in 2022, according to the East Bay Times. The same report found that speeding was involved in about 31% of deadly California crashes in 2022, up from 26% in 2018.
Pedestrian deaths remain a significant share of the broader toll. Los Angeles County recorded 273 pedestrian traffic fatalities in 2023, more than any other county in the state, while statewide pedestrian deaths totaled 1,106 that year, accounting for more than 27% of all traffic-related fatalities in California, Hoodline has reported. Citywide, traffic collisions killed 290 people in Los Angeles in 2025, with more than 150 of those deaths involving pedestrians, according to data reported by LAist and attributed to the Los Angeles Police Department.
That same LAPD data marked 2025 as the second consecutive year that traffic fatalities on Los Angeles city streets have decreased, with a 6% drop compared to 2024 — though the station's report notes fatalities remain above pre-pandemic levels. Separately, research from UC Berkeley's SafeTREC examines the nighttime share of fatal pedestrian crashes.
