THE whole point of bus gates on Oxford’s High Street are to act as a deterrent. When such regulations are brought in on our roads “deterrent” is always the word du jour.

Transport bosses will insist to drivers these measures are absolutely no cash cows. But today’s figures revealing 150,000 cases of drivers flouting the rules could suggest otherwise. Clearly the High Street’s bus gates are not having their desired effect.

Driving in Oxford city centre is difficult enough given roadworks and one-way systems. Do we really want a main thoroughfare potentially clogged up in the same way as Botley Road becomes snarled by stationary traffic in rush-hour?

The £4m raked in by Oxfordshire County Council is a hefty amount and it will be interesting to see how the authority responds to calls for them to be scrapped.

Surely, if the motive behind introducing them was as a deterrent, then the authority must see they simply are not working.

As Simon Williams of the RAC points out, no driver deliberately sets out to be fined.

Measures must be clearly signposted and easy to understand, particularly in tourist hotspots. Transport bosses must think long and hard about priorities.