Why you shouldn't smoke and drive! | Canterbury News | Local News in Canterbury

We have all heard the dangers of drinking and driving, but yesterday Alistair Jamieson learned that smoking and driving could be just as risky.

The 51-year-old was trying to light up when he ploughed his van into a Linwood house about 12.40pm.

He had dropped the vehicle’s cigarette lighter on the floor, and was trying to pick it up when he hit a power pole, and spun out of control and came to a stop in the front porch of a Gloucester St flat.

Speaking to The Star in the moments after the crash, Mr Jamieson said he was worried the lighter would set alight the carpet of the van.

“I bent down to pick it up and put it back in, then I looked up and saw the house,” he said.

“I thought, ‘how did that house get there’.”

“There was no way to correct it.”

However, he was able to walk away from the crash relatively unscathed.

Inside the house, Chris Ritsma, 18, said he was chatting online when he heard the van hit the house.

“It sounded like a truck had lost its load,” he said.

“I just wrote (on MSN) ‘I’ve got to go someone just crashed into my fence’ and logged off,” he said.

“I’m glad it didn’t trash the house.”

Mr Ritsma said he ran out to see if the driver was injured.

“I know first aid. He (Mr Jamieson) said he was all right. He was a bit lost for words,” he said.

Mr Jamieson passed a breath test administered by attending police.

He said he was not injured but felt “a bit tired.”

He was heading home after being “out looking at stuff” when the accident happened.

“Lucky no one else was in the car except me,” he said.

Constable Jason Brown said it was purely a case of driver distraction, and that it was “very lucky” there were no passengers in the van.

“By the damage, they (a passenger) would probably have had leg injuries or head injuries,” he said.

Mr Jamieson is likely to face careless use charges, police said.