One person was killed on Thursday, November 12, when the sedan they were driving crashed into the center divider of the HOV lane that connects the northbound Orange (57) Freeway to the eastbound Pomona (60) Freeway in Diamond Bar, in eastern Los Angeles County.
Source: MyNewsLA / City News Service
The crash was reported at 4:11 a.m., according to the California Highway Patrol (CHP). A witness claimed they could see flames underneath the blue Honda Civic, which had major front-end damage, the CHP said.
Source: MyNewsLA / City News Service
One person was pronounced dead at the scene, CHP Officer T. Dean confirmed to City News Service. No name, age or hometown for the driver had been released in the reports available at the time of publication — identification in fatal freeway cases is made by the county coroner and released only after the family is notified.
Source: MyNewsLA / City News Service
HOV flyover shut, main lanes partly open
The CHP issued a SigAlert at 4:44 a.m. shutting down the HOV flyover from the northbound Orange Freeway to the eastbound Pomona Freeway and the far-left general-purpose lane, City News Service reported. The CHP's own incident log fills in the scene in the officers' shorthand: the call came in just north of Pathfinder Road, Los Angeles County Fire was notified under incident 3093, and the attenuators — the crash cushions that separate the HOV flyover from the main portion of the freeway — were reported completely compressed by the impact.
Source: California Highway Patrol incident log
By 5:01 a.m. the log records the HOV flyover and the No. 1 lane shut, with the No. 2 and No. 3 lanes open, so the main body of the interchange stayed moving while the flyover stayed closed. A tow was requested for the blue Honda Civic with major front-end damage. At 5:44 a.m. officers were asking for the coroner's estimated arrival; the log gives coroner case CC# 2026-18011 and an estimated arrival of about one and a half hours.
Source: California Highway Patrol incident log
One of the region's busiest freight interchanges
The 57/60 interchange in Diamond Bar is where the Orange Freeway meets the Pomona Freeway — a junction that carries commuters between Los Angeles, Orange County and the San Gabriel and Pomona valleys, and a heavy flow of trucks moving freight in and out of the Inland Empire's warehouse belt. Its elevated HOV flyover lets carpool and toll-lane traffic pass from one freeway to the other above the main lanes, which is also why a single-vehicle crash on the flyover cannot simply be driven around: the ramp itself has to close while officers document the scene and the vehicle is recovered.
For the pre-dawn traffic that uses this junction — early-shift workers, airport and warehouse traffic, and long-haul drivers crossing the basin before the morning peak — the practical effect on Thursday was a closed flyover and a warning to use the mainline transition or surface alternatives, with the SigAlert issued for an unknown duration in its first form.
Known: one driver died at the scene, the car was a blue Honda Civic, the crash was reported at 4:11 a.m., and the HOV flyover was closed under a SigAlert from 4:44 a.m. Not yet stated by the CHP in the reports available: why the car hit the divider — whether speed, impairment, fatigue, a medical emergency or road conditions played any part — and the driver's identity. Those answers come from the CHP investigation and the coroner, not from the first incident log.
Single-vehicle, pre-dawn crashes into fixed dividers follow a familiar investigative path: officers measure and photograph the flyover, the CHP retrieves the vehicle's data where available, the coroner establishes the cause of death, and investigators look for witnesses or camera footage from the interchange and nearby businesses. The flames a witness reported underneath the car will also be examined, to establish whether they followed the impact, as the log entries suggest, rather than preceded it.
What happens next: the coroner will identify the driver once family notification is complete, the CHP will confirm when the SigAlert is lifted and the flyover fully reopens, and the Patrol's findings on the cause will follow its investigation. Awaaz Punjab will update this story when the driver's name and the CHP's account are released.