Ontario Court Judge Lesley Baldwin acquitted Ottavio Ariganello in this Burlington courthouse. (Google)

An Ontario judge has overturned the careless driving conviction of a man whose coughing fit led to his car hitting and killing a woman at the side of a road.

Ontario Court Judge Lesley Baldwin ruled, in a Burlington, Ont., court, that when Ottavio Ariganello closed his eyes while driving it was an "involuntary physical reaction" to the coughing.

Ariganello told the court he had a cough all day on Feb. 21, 2008, and he testified that, on his drive home from work in a semi-rural area of Halton Hills, Ont. — about 60 kilometres west of Toronto — he began coughing intensely, and then he became dizzy, and his eyes closed for two to four seconds.

His car veered off the road and hit and killed 50-year-old Carolyn McTavish, who was on the shoulder of the road getting her mail.

He was originally convicted of careless driving, but Baldwin found that the justice of the peace who made that ruling was mistaken in finding that Ariganello chose to close his eyes.

Baldwin acquitted Ariganello, and said that if it weren't for the tragic consequences, he likely wouldn't have been convicted in the first place.