Running engine leads to €45 fine

A BUS driver has been fined €45 for leaving his engine running to heat the bus for passengers.

The Veolia Transport driver, who had been parked outside Brétigny station, south of Paris, at 6.20, had allowed passengers to board rather than having them standing in the early-morning cold.

Police Municipale officers handed him a fixed-penalty notice procès-verbal under article R 318-1 of the Code de la Route, which bans vehicles from emitting noxious smells that would affect the safety of people nearby.

The driver, himself a former municipal police officer in nearby Lisses, told Le Parisien: “I’m here to do a public service and there was a mother and baby; I couldn’t leave them outside.”

He said the fine amounted to nearly a whole day’s pay.

The mairie at Brétigny said that they had been trying to get bus companies to stop the noise and fumes nuisance at the railway station. For the past two months, municipal police had been warning drivers they were annoying nearby residents by leaving their engines running.