Solo Crash depicts a violent car accident on a sun-drenched highway. As a resident of Los Angeles, where he cofounded the Chicano arts organization Centro de Arte Público, Almaraz witnessed the changing urban landscape in Southern California, including the detrimental effects of new highway infrastructure on local neighborhoods, and the failed socioeconomic promises of the so-called American Dream. During this time in his career, he frequently depicted car crashes, which he felt conveyed the “angst-provoking preoccupation with death in our society… every day you get into an automobile and you could die, yet you get through, you somehow get to your destination.”