Sir – Your correspondent Richard Anderson (Letters, May 16) has a valid point to make but he should bear in mind that Oxfordshire County Council is a long-term resident of the lunatic fringe of highways authorities.

In the early 1990s it was they who, carried away by their enthusiasm for speed cameras, ignored clear evidence that they were counter-productive and caused many additional deaths on the roads. It is they, too, whose stewardship of our roads has brought them to the point where they are now actually worse than those of Belgium. As for the A34, it was ill-conceived from the outset.

Apparently, it was beyond the wit of the planners to appreciate that, once the M40 reached completion, a route would be created connecting the industrial North-West and Midlands with both a Channel port and a deep-sea port — Portsmouth and Southampton.

It was built on the cheap, causing far more environmental damage than need have been caused and leaving us with a road completely inadequate for the resulting traffic flows.

Added to this problem, we have to add the effect of the rising local population and the increasing suburbanisation of the county, which brings with it rising levels of traffic. Somehow it all seems to have taken Oxfordshire County Council completely by surprise.

They are just not fit to be let loose on our roads.

Ralph Ingham-Johnson, Witney