THE death toll on Oxfordshire's roads may have halved last year but they were not much safer overall, it was revealed tonight.

Road safety campaigners had welcomed the fall from 68 killed in 2006 to 34 last year, but the number of people who were seriously injured rose.

Taken together, 364 people were killed or seriously injured on the roads, only a marginal drop from the 2006 figure of 372.

Road safety experts renewed appeals for motorists to drive more safely.

Oxfordshire County Council said that 2,605 people were killed or suffered either serious or slight injury.

The county council said the number was the equivalent of the population of Woodstock.

Assistant chief fire officer Dave Etheridge, who is spearheading the county's 365 Alive campaign to cut road and fire deaths, said: "The number of people killed or seriously injured has remained static and it is something we are working hard to reduce.

"Our simple advice is to drive to the conditions of the road."

Overall there has been a decrease in deaths and serious injuries of almost five per cent over the past four years.

The total number of casualties which includes slight injuries, fell by just two per cent over the same period, from 2,633 to 2,605.

The county council's cabinet member for transport, Ian Hudspeth said: "I'm pleased that there is a slow and steady decline in the number of people who are killed or injured on the roads in Oxfordshire.

"However, when you hear that the number of people killed or injured last year was the equivalent of the population of Woodstock you realise the extent of the problem."

Dawn Arnold, whose 19-year-old son Shane Vaughan was killed in a car crash on Christmas Day, 2006, said more could be done to cut road deaths.

Mrs Arnold, who recently won a battle to get the speed limit on the A4130 between Hadden Hill and Didcot cut from 50mph to 40, said: "It is good that the number of deaths has decreased - but even one is too many.

"The new speed limit on the A4130 is good but I would have liked a sign warning of the number of fatalities because it makes drivers think 'Gosh this is a dangerous piece of road, I need to be aware and drive carefully'."