Distracted Motorist Veers, Kills Jogger, 71

A Brea jogger was killed when he was hit by a van a mile from his home after the driver took his eyes off the road to retrieve a cell phone he had dropped, the California Highway Patrol said Sunday.

Relatives of Eric Burton, 71, a retired pharmacist and avid jogger who was killed Saturday morning in an unincorporated area near Brea, called for legislation restricting the use of cell phones while driving.

“In New York state it’s against the law to use a cell phone while driving,” said Edward Rumph, 69, a relative of Burton’s widow. “We have to get some legislation.”

The van’s driver, Brian Scott Lankford, 38, of Brea told CHP officers he leaned over to pick up his cell phone while driving south on Valencia Avenue near Lambert Road. He said he didn’t notice he had drifted into the bike lane where Burton was running. Lankford stopped, checked on Burton and then called police on his cell phone, a CHP spokeswoman said.

Lankford was not intoxicated and was not cited, the spokeswoman said. The crash was under investigation Sunday.

Burton, a fit 5 feet 9 and 160 pounds, trained near his home. He enjoyed fun runs, including Brea’s annual 10-kilometer race, said his widow, Kim, 37.

When her husband failed to return home as scheduled she became worried and got in her car to look for him.

“I saw the van and the police parked around it but I didn’t stop,” she said. “I just knew....”

Shaken, she went home and called police to ask if the accident involved her husband. Told it had, she rushed to the hospital where he was taken. He died later that day.

On Sunday, Kim Burton mourned the loss of her husband while making funeral arrangements. “I even had made a tag for him, you know, for running, in case he got hurt so police would know who to call in case of an emergency,” she said.

He wore the tag on the laces of his running shoes, she said.

The couple have a daughter, Kortnee, 13. Burton also had three grown children from a previous marriage.

Burton had sold his own pharmacy and then worked for 15 years at a Sav-on Drugs in Fullerton before his retirement.

Recently, the CHP recommended to Gov. Gray Davis and the Legislature that the state consider passing a law prohibiting drivers from using hand-held cell phones, similar to one passed in New York and at least 22 countries.

The CHP’s reversal of policy came after studying 18 months’ worth of statewide accident reports on drivers who were distracted by cell phone use.

The CHP reviewed studies done elsewhere in the U.S. and abroad and concluded that distracted drivers cause accidents, and that cell phones are a growing distraction.

The CHP asked that it be authorized to continue studying the issue for two more years and to produce a more definitive report by Dec. 31, 2006.