WHEN dinosaurs roamed the earth and I was young, a common joke about the police was that they were too busy directing traffic to collar criminals.

How I yearned for the return of that blissful state while edging towards Wantage in a queue of refugees from the A34 recently.

Obviously, the convenience of other drivers counts for nothing compared to the grim business of rescuing the victims of road crashes and ensuring the safety of accident scenes, which must remain a priority for the police.

But when, after queueing for well over an hour to enter Wantage, I found that the choke point was a simple T-junction beyond which traffic was flowing freely, I longed for the days of the policeman on points duty.

For those not brought up in the days of real local policing from fully-manned local police stations (remember them?), the procedure went roughly as follows: When a traffic problem arose, the sergeant on duty would send a beat policeman to the source of the problem. This officer would then direct traffic by a recognised code of hand signals until the problem was eased.

One such officer would probably have eased the appalling traffic, but of course there were none to be seen.

Contrast that with the scene in central Oxford on any Friday or Saturday night, when pairs of officers are out picking up the usual spewing and swearing drunks. Or consider the omnipresent PCSOs, always, like magpies, to be seen in pairs.

Might they not be taught the rudiments of traffic direction? It can’t be that difficult.

I remember my mother telling me that in the 1930s the local village idiot made quite a good job of directing the traffic when the mood was on him. he was unpaid, as well.

Martin Roberts, Stone Close, Botley, Oxford