Sir – If Hugh Jaeger of Oxford Bus Users’ Group (Gazette Letters, October 22) had more information to hand, he would probably have mentioned – as many politicians do – that the UK has the highest number of vehicles per mile of road, compared with the rest of the developed world but carefully avoided mentioning that we have the lowest road mileage per head of population, nor would he have drawn attention to the fact that the UK scores very low when vehicle numbers are compared with the population size.

Building new roads does not increase traffic.

Traffic is merely people moving from place to place and the population of West Oxfordshire has increased exponentially.

Traffic is best thought of in terms of a collar that is too tight for the neck – expand the collar and the neck expands to its natural size. Road capacity has long lagged behind the country’s needs and probably always will.

Politicians have discovered that congestion can be taxed and be lucrative.

In fact, overcrowding is a driver of traffic. People live where they can afford to, not where they need to, and many travel extreme distances to work.

That is why, in a few weeks’ time, there will be cries of anguish over increases in rail fares without anyone actually wondering why people travel 70, 80 or 90 miles to work.

If I tell you that when I was born, the population of Britain was just under 48 million and my lifetime has seen it increase to over 64 million, perhaps that puts the matter into some sort of context. It is a question of numbers.

Ralph Ingham-Johnson, Pensclose, Witney