I think everybody's deepest sympathy goes to all the families caught up in the tragic accident on Oxford's Eastern Bypass.

But I think what Mary Stiff, of Cowley, said about imposing a 50mph speed limit on the ring road (Oxford Mail, June 9) would be a total waste of time.

As you have reported, there has been only one fatal head-on accident and a few cross-overs since 1979.

How many vehicles have travelled along that same piece of road in that time? A good guess would be half a million or more vehicles.

Crash barriers might have saved one life. Those who lost their lives in the Citroen still might have lost their lives. We will never know.

You are more likely to be killed in a head-on crash on a single carriageway road than on a dual carriageway without crash barriers, because all that stops you hitting another car head-on on a single carriageway road is white paint in the middle of it and that is no help whatsoever.

Mrs Stiff point outs that often lorries thunder along that piece of road, and sometimes, they can't stop for the traffic lights near Homebase.

But what a lot of people don't know is that lorries can do a maximum speed of 56mph (imposed by law), so if the lights change to amber then red and the lorry is close to them, say 100-150 metres, they might not have a safe enough distance to stop (40 tons + 50-56 mph and a slight downhill slope = a very long stopping distance).

A car can stop from 70mph to zero in 100 metres or less.

The real problem we have today on every road in the UK is cars that can do more than 120+ mph, but it seems that some of the brains that drive them can do only 20mph.

If the powers-that-be impose a lower speed limit on this section of ring road, then why not just impose a 30mph speed limit right across the county? David Spearman, Wolsey Road, Cutteslowe, Oxford