Driver reaches for cigarette, flips car

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A 54-year-old Maricopa man lost control of his 2001 silver Ford Taurus Monday afternoon before flipping the vehicle into a business parking lot off John Wayne Parkway near Farrell Road.

Don Thorpe, the sole occupant of the car, walked away from the crash unharmed. 

Thorpe was driving south on State Route 347 just before 1 p.m. when he reached for a cigarette on the floor board between the driver’s seat and the passenger’s seat, he said. He hit his brake pedal after the car swerved, but quickly lost control. 

The Ford Taurus went off the road, crashed through a white fence and ended up inverted in the parking lot of the Ak-Chin O’Odham Runner newspaper offices. A piece of debris broke the back window of an SUV parked in the lot. 

Thorpe said he unbuckled his seatbelt, climbed out through the driver’s side window and didn’t have a scratch on him. 

“Not a thing,” he said. 

Thorpe blamed the crash partly on a low tire on the car’s back passenger side. He said he was driving home after making a stop at Maricopa Mountain Plumbing on State 347 near Maricopa-Casa Grande Highway and was thinking of filling up the tire at a nearby QT, but eventually decided to put it off until a later time. 

Thorpe said he was driving the speed limit. 

Ak-Chin police and fire officials responded to the crash. The investigation was turned over to the Arizona Department of Public Safety.