Motorists faced rush-hour chaos last night after a traffic light failure led to tailbacks of more than ten miles.
Traffic on the A34 and A421 between Oxford and Bicester was delayed for almost two hours, because of a sequencing error in traffic lights at the M40 roundabout.
The line of stationary traffic stretched back to Bicester and led to gridlock on the Oxford ring road and on routes out of the city.
There was also congestion on roads through surrounding villages.
Queues built up at junctions near Cassington, Eynsham, Chesterton and Bladon as drivers searched for ways around the traffic jam.
The traffic lights were installed at the busy motorway junction last year, to ease traffic flow and improve road safety.
One motorist said: "It was a nightmare.
"Everybody decided to take the back route through the villages, so at every junction there were queues of traffic trying to rejoin the main roads."
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