A Norwalk, California, man lives close enough to the end of the 105 Freeway that he sometimes hears the crashes from home.
After seeing the same scene play out again and again near Studebaker Road, Oswald Ponce decided to start documenting it. What began as a joke turned into an Instagram account devoted almost entirely to vehicles failing to make it through one particularly unforgiving intersection.
Then his followers suggested another addition: a dry-erase sign counting the number of days since the last crash.
The account now has more than 19,000 followers, one of Ponce’s videos has racked up nearly 18 million views, and the crash counter recently hit a milestone he had never seen before.
Keeping Score
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Ponce told ABC7 that crashes near his home have even awakened him at night.
He eventually created the @105exitcrashes Instagram account to keep track of them.
“It was more of like a gag at first,” Ponce told the station. “I didn’t think a lot of people would really see it.”
A lot of people did.
Along with the crash footage, Ponce began displaying a “days since last crash” sign after followers suggested the idea. He told ABC7 he has replaced the sign roughly a dozen times because it has been stolen or damaged.
Last week, the number finally reached 100 days — the first time Ponce had managed to reach triple digits since starting the account.
A Rough Record
The intersection has earned its reputation.
In April 2024, Los Angeles County Supervisor Janice Hahn’s office said there had been 12 severe crashes and two fatalities there in 2023 alone. Hahn asked the state for additional lighting, signage and rumble strips approaching the Studebaker Road terminus.
Her office said crashes had also repeatedly sent vehicles into a medical facility directly across from the freeway, eventually forcing the facility to close. :contentReference[oaicite:1]{index=1}
There are plenty of older examples.
In 2023, CBS Los Angeles reported on a pickup that hit the guardrail there around 1:30 a.m. The station’s archives contained crashes at the same location in 2019, 2021 and earlier in 2023.
A 2019 crash left a car mangled after it went into the building across Studebaker Road.
Plenty Of Warning
Calling the location an “abrupt end” to the freeway, however, only tells part of the story.
The intersection has been the subject of repeated safety work. Hahn specifically pushed for more warning signs, lighting and rumble strips in 2024, and ABC7 reported that Caltrans has since made a number of additions while planning more improvements.
Caltrans’ proposed 2026 State Highway Operation and Protection Program includes another project covering the 105 from east of the Woodruff Avenue overcrossing to Studebaker Road. Plans call for improved lighting, transportation-management equipment, high-visibility crosswalks and accessibility upgrades, with construction scheduled to begin in 2029.
People familiar with the exit made much the same point in the comments beneath ABC7’s YouTube report.
Several pushed back on the idea that drivers simply encounter an unexpected end to the freeway. They pointed to the existing signs, rumble strips and the distance available to slow down. Others blamed speeding or drivers who simply were not paying attention.
Those comments don’t establish what caused any particular crash, but they do make the footage harder to dismiss as nothing more than motorists being ambushed by a strange road design.
Still Counting
The crashes haven’t disappeared.
ABC7 reported that they have become less frequent following the safety additions, although Ponce joked that his increasingly famous Instagram account might deserve some of the credit.
“Maybe people are too embarrassed to crash here now because they’ll be put on blast on my account,” he told the station.
Ponce isn’t rooting for more material.
If the crashes eventually stop and @105exitcrashes no longer has anything left to document, he told ABC7 he would be perfectly happy with that.