Chaos hit a tiny village when three lorries got stuck after drivers tried to avoid the A34 jams.

The lorries, two from France and one from Czechoslovakia, tried to get through Wytham to rejoin the bypass via Wolvercote - but found their way barred by weight restrictions on bridges over the Thames.

Charles Swint, who runs the post office and stores in Wytham, said the drivers had obviously misread road signs and had not realised how tight bends in the village would be.

He said: "The drivers were coming through Wytham off the A34 to avoid the jams, but they didn't realise the bridges into Wolvercote will only take seven-and-a-half tonnes. "They were trying to turn around and go back the way they came."

Mr Swint said the village was in chaos with traffic trying to avoid the A34. He had been trying to to stop lorries trying to get through the village but to no avail.

"Some of the drivers are foreign and don't understand what you are trying to say, or they are simply going too fast for us to stop them," he said.

"By the time they have gone past, they are on their way to Wolvercote and only turn round when they get to the first bridge there."

The work has been causing chaos for the last week.

Converted for the new archive on 30 June 2000. Some images and formatting may have been lost in the conversion.