Sunday, March 2, 2008
Jogger, 48, killed on Bake Parkway in Lake Forest
'I'm very sorry,' says driver of car, off-duty security guard.
By SERENA MARIA DANIELS, ELYSSE JAMES and MARK EADES
The Orange County Register
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LAKE FOREST - Authorities are investigating if the driver who struck and killed a woman who was jogging on a bike lane Sunday fell asleep at the wheel.
Kevin Young, 44, of Long Beach, was driving to work when he hit Marcia Soto, said Jim Amormino, spokesman for the Orange County Sheriff's Department. Alcohol did not play a factor.
The investigation is still ongoing, he said.
Sunday started as it did most days for Marcia Soto. She woke up early to go for a jog.
When she didn't return, housemate Debbie Chwatek, 49, and her sister went out looking for Soto along her usual route.
That's when Chwatek saw the police cars.
Soto was killed by a car at 6:02 a.m., while running westbound with her iPod on the eastbound side of Bake Parkway, just off North Pointe Drive. She was running in the bike lane, Amormino said.
The driver, Kevin Young, 44, of Long Beach, an off-duty security guard, was driving a company-owned Toyota Yaris when he veered to the right and struck Soto, Amormino said.
No arrests have been made, he said. The investigation is ongoing.
"It's pretty tough,'' said Debbie Chwatek, who had to tell Soto's family of her death, using the cell phone that Soto had left behind.
Soto worked at Costco in Irvine, where she did marketing for the company.
On Sunday, fliers were posted at the store announcing Soto's death to colleagues.
Co-workers said Soto was an inspiration to most of those around her. They said she told them she had lost more than 100 pounds through running and other exercise.
"She's run in marathons before,'' said Jeff Pierini, a Costco warehouse manager. "I'm thinking that if she would have run the L.A. Marathon this morning, this never would have happened to her."
Others remembered Soto, who went by the nickname "Marcie,'' for her positive attitude.
"Everyone that you'd ever talk to here would say that you'd never see her in a bad mood," said Soto's supervisor, Alicia Koerner, adding that Soto would sometimes do push-ups while working to lighten up the mood.
Authorities urge joggers to use sidewalks if they are there. It is actually illegal to use a bike lane when a sidewalk is an option. But runners prefer to exercise on asphalt roads rather than concrete because the surface is softer. There was a sidewalk where the accident occurred.
The driver, who said he worked the graveyard shift and usually got off at 6 a.m., expressed his sorrow for what happened. But he declined to tell a reporter how it happened.
"It was just really shocking and I've never had anything like this happen to me before,'' Young said in a telephone interview. "I have no police record or anything. It was just a relatively normal day at work and this happened. I'm very sorry about what happened and I'm sorry for the family, too.''
Eric Frome, who works at Snail's Pace Running Shop in Laguna Hills, said he runs 90 to 100 miles a week, and "I do run in the bike lane quite often."
"It is standard procedure to run against traffic in the bike lane,'' he said. "It's much less safe and we don't condone it. It's terrible it happens. It would be nice if we could all share the road.''
In April 2006, two joggers were struck as they ran in the bicycle lane on Pacific Coast Highway in Dana Point. The women were left paralyzed. The driver, who fled the scene, had three prior drunken-driving convictions. He was convicted and got four years in prison.
The women sued the city of Dana Point and the city settled for $49 million. The lawsuit alleged that the road was unsafe because the bike lane was too wide and drivers could mistake it for another car lane.
Several joggers made their way along Bake in the area of the accident Sunday morning. Neil Saavedra, 38, a sales coordinator from Lake Forest, was among them.
"I always feel safe; there are lots of sidewalks,'' he said. "I love this route. It's nice. It's not trafficky."