Decades of effort and millions of pounds in traffic schemes have been put into persuading the people of Oxfordshire to get out of their cars and on to their bicycles.

But new figures suggesting the number of cyclists killed or seriously injured on our roads has more than doubled in a decade suggest the big uptake in cycling has come at a price. County Hall deputy leader Rodney Rose frankly admits that a big increase in cyclists may well be linked to more accidents.

But this must not be accepted as an inevitable consequence of the growing popularity of cycling. While the Green Party says both the city and county councils need to find exactly what is going wrong and where the accidents are taking place, Mr Rose suggests that the county council is already well aware of the blackspots — the problem is laying hands on money to make the necessary improvements to the junctions.

It’s certainly true that the bridge outside Oxford rail station on the Botley Road has long been a cycling nightmare, while Parks Road has also seen horrific accidents.

Major development schemes in the city have certainly seen a concentration of construction lorries in areas of heavy cycle use in Oxford, such as Jericho.

Identifying accident trends, never mind explaining them, is never easy, not least with human error and recklessness having to be factored in.

But trends still must be investigated — whether by day-to-day monitoring or full blown inquiry — before we can have full confidence in any proposed solutions.