A CAR transporter driver who blamed a sneezing fit for making him veer onto a motorway hard shoulder and smash into a broken down bus was jailed for six months today.

Trucker Kyle Porter, 32, had driven for miles repeatedly sneezing and straying off the carriageway when he did so, Gloucester Crown Court was told.

In 25 minutes, from the time the former soldier set off from Bristol's Royal Portbury Dock until the collision near Dursley, he had veered onto the hard shoulder or slip roads 42 times, said prosecutor Catherine Flint.

He caused an estimated £100,000 damage when his fully laden car transporter hit the single decker Stagecoach bus on the hard shoulder of the northbound carriageway, the court heard.

Not long before the collision the bus driver and a Stagecoach mechanic had been standing at the rear of the vehicle assessing whether it could be repaired there, Ms Flint said.

Luckily, they had decided it was too dangerous to be working at the back of the vehicle and had left the scene by the time Porter approached the scene and hit the bus.

Dad of two Porter, of Pound Crescent, Fetchem, Surrey, a former Lance Corporal in the Paras who has suffered post traumatic stress syndrome since serving in Afghanistan a decade ago, pleaded guilty to driving a Scania HGV dangerously on March 28 this year.

Jailing him for six months and banning him from driving for three years, Judge Michael Cullum told him: "I find it extremely difficult to understand how a sneezing fit could have caused you to be on the hard shoulder for periods of up to 36 seconds continuously.

"But there is no evidence of anything else that could explain it.

"This does reveal how dramatic those sneezing fits must have been, to cause you to 42 times to drive onto the hard shoulder."

The judge had seen dashcam footage from Porter's lorry of the vehicle straying into the hard shoulder and then hitting the bus, which was visible for seven seconds prior to impact.

Judge Cullum said Porter had plenty of time to have pulled over until the sneezing stopped but he did not do so.

"You were driving effectively blind," he said.

"You could not see what you were doing - you didn't have control of your vehicle.

"You were an accident waiting to happen."

The judge said it was a 'sad task' to have to jail Porter immediately in view of his previous good driving record and military service but he had no option.

Ms Flint had told the court that the crash happened at 1.55pm, about 25 minutes after the bus had broken down and been left on the hard shoulder.

The dashcam footage showed that Porter was veering across onto the hard shoulder intermittently throughout the journey from Bristol docks, she said.

After the crash Porter told police he suffers from hay fever and had been having a sneezing fit during the journey. The sunlight was also making him sneeze, he stated.

He said he did take medication for hay fever in the season but had none with him at the time because he had not expected to be affected as early as March.

"He accepted that his standard of driving as a professional driver should have been a lot higher," she said.

"The damage to the bus cost £50,000 to repair. "

The judge said it looked as though the lorry had suffered similar value damage making the total cost of the crash £100,000.

Leanne Woodman, defending, handed the court 'impressive references' for Porter and said he accepted that his career as a driver was now over.

He had obtained security work which was due to start in two weeks but at much lower pay, she said.

Porter felt 'profound remorse' for his offence, she added.

"He is a former lance corporal in the Parachute Regiment, serving from 2002 to 2010. He was medically discharged because of PTSD in 2009. This was after seeing combat in Afganistan. "