A concrete crash barrier will be built along Oxford's Eastern Bypass, but controversy surrounds whether it should be made a 50mph dual carriageway.

Last night Oxfordshire County Council's policy-making cabinet agreed to press ahead with plans to install a £600,000 motorway-style barrier and introduce a speed limit in a two-pronged approach to improve road safety.

In May, three teenagers and another man were killed on the road after a car crossed the central reservation and was involved in a collision with oncoming traffic.

Marshall Haynes, Josh Bartlett and Liam Hastings, all 13, died instantly as did 21-year-old Howard Hillsdon.

Motorist Glenn Comiskey, from Stanford-in-the-Vale, addressed yesterday's meeting to attack the county council's proposal to reduce the speed limit from 60mph to 50mph, saying it would lead to more accidents.

He said: "If the council was to go ahead with the proposed limit the lasting memorial to the four young lives already lost will be disrespect for the law and the police and further blood and carnage on the Eastern Bypass.

"The cause of the accident is unknown. Therefore how can the council expect the proposed 50mph limit to prevent a recurrence?

"I can only believe that council officers are making the proposal in an effort to be seen to be doing something, regardless of its worth.

"Oxfordshire County Council has repeatedly demonstrated that it believes speed limits are a panacea for all the world's ills, but its own accident data has shown that time and time again, when it has imposed a ridiculously low limit, the number of accidents has in fact increased."

Between 1979 (when accident data was first recorded) and 1997, no record of so-called 'crossover' accidents, where a car crosses onto another carriageway, exist on the section of road between Horspath Driftway and Kiln Lane, where the May 28 crash happened.

Since 1997 there have been five 'crossover' accidents and 59 accidents -- including one fatal -- for other reasons.

County council highways engineers said a decision to put the barrier up along the Eastern Bypass was "marginal" given the fact it may not prevent further accidents.

Tory deputy county council leader and cabinet member for transport, David Robertson, said: "Without this tragic accident this would not be a place where we would spend £600,000.

"If we didn't do it and it did happen again then we would have no defence as a council having considered it and considered against it."

The crash barrier will not be ready before the New Year. No decision has yet been taken on the speed cameras.