Villagers campaigning for new measures to prevent speeding motorists have been told action will only be taken if lives are lost.

Parish councillors in Grove asked Oxfordshire County Council to move a speed camera further along the A338 road from Wantage.

But Geoff Barrell, Oxfordshire's principal engineer for road safety, said the work could only take place if people were killed on the road.

Parish councillors approached the county council following complaints by retired schoolteacher Maureen Dubenski who accused car drivers and motorcyclists of using the traffic lights at Grove Bridge as the "starter's flag" before racing along the straight stretch of the main road towards the Williams F1 headquarters north of the village.

Mrs Dubenski, whose back garden in Hawthorne Crescent backs on to the A338, warned of a "disaster waiting to happen" and claimed drivers ignoring the 50mph limit endangered pedestrians crossing to a nature area.

She said they continued to get away with it only because no-one had been killed there for 20 years.

Parish councillors decided that the present camera, close to the former Yoplait dairy site, south of the Grove Bridge lights, would be better sited near the lay-by at the end of the straight stretch.

But Grove parish clerk Sue Copp was told that national regulations meant cameras generally remained where they were, and that new cameras could not be considered unless there had been at least four accidents -- including two fatal or serious ones -- in a 500m length of road within a three-year period.

In a letter to the council last week, Mr Barrell said: "It may sound crass that we can only act after accidents have occurred, but I believe it is designed to ensure cameras are politically acceptable to the general population -- an essential consideration if they are eventually to be more widely used."

Mr Barrell said the highway authority had to ensure speed cameras were respected for their accident prevention role.

He said: "I believe the benefit of speed cameras should soon extend beyond their immediate environment as drivers with points on their licence drive more carefully wherever they are, and hopefully as attitudes to cameras soften, the criteria for their use can be relaxed."