Depends on the spot. Along Big Sur it’s like that a lot. And a couple hours north of San Francisco there are some spots too.
If you’re going to die, you couldn’t pick a more beautiful spot.
This was at Devil’s slide, barely 10 miles south of San Francisco. There are plenty of places you can go off the road if you are driving like a maniac. As the picture showed, it is not a sheer cliff at all but a steep hillside. Excess speed, impairment, or lack of skill were the likely causes. I mean, I suppose James Bond could have shot him mid-curve with a high-powered sniper rifle assembled from parts he toted in an attache case, but not very likely.