47 road deaths so far this year in our county.

That was the news in Monday's Oxford Mail. Since the recent high figure of 64 deaths in the year 2003, there has been an improvement in Oxfordshire:

2004 33 deaths
2005 40 deaths

Although the overall trend of serious and fatal road accidents is downwards, this year's deaths total looks almost certain to exceed one every week. Nationally the sobering statistic is 9 or 10 deaths every single day.

A controversial article by Kira Cochrane in today's Guardian attacking the BBC car programme "Top Gear"* concludes with some ideas for reducing this terrible toll:

1) anyone found guilty of killing or seriously injuring a person through speeding to be disqualified from driving FOR LIFE

2) cars could be fitted with DIGITAL speedometers - this would enable drivers to see exactly how fast they are driving (at present, if you are in a 30 mph zone, you'll only be fined when you hit 35 mph and above; at that speed you are highly likely to kill a pedestrian if you hit them.)

3) introduce an incentive for drivers to use speed-limited cars, which would alert you whenever you strayed over the limit.

On this last idea, I have been in touch with the researchers at Leeds University who are working on speed limiter proposals, and they are very optimistic about its success.

* "Top Gear, a programme that glamorises speeding, rails against speed cameras, and sticks two fingers up at the basic laws of physics and biology - the fact that the faster you drive the more likely you are to kill or be killed."

Does anyone out there agree with this? If so, perhaps an approach to local MPs could lead to action at last?