Coughing driver pulls over and gets a ticket within 90 seconds

She says she was only stationary for 90 seconds while she got over a coughing fit – but that didn’t stop an unlucky driver from earning a £35 parking fine. Fiona Thompson claims the ticket was handed out in double-quick time by a parking attendant who was not even in recognisable uniform.

She had just left work when she started coughing at the wheel. For safety’s sake she pulled into the bus layby outside Milford Primary School in the New Forest to recover. As it was school leaving time, she realised she might be causing a problem. “It’s a large long layby. I moved up to the end so that I wouldn’t block the traffic,” said Fiona, from Mudeford.



“With my engine still running and me sat in the driver’s seat, the next thing I knew was being startled by a man shoving a penalty charge notice through a gap in my offside window. I had been there a whole minute.” She claimed the man was wearing an anorak or ski jacket and a woollen hat.

“When I questioned his actions he simply told me it was too late and promptly got in his car, which he’d pulled up behind mine,” she said. “I’ve challenged it and they will take 10 working days to decide.” New Forest District Council has rejected the allegation and said the anorak-style jacket and woolly hat was “part of the uniform worn for inclement weather”.