WHY doesn't the government face up to the fact that people want to drive their cars and need decent roads to do so?

Living in Oxfordshire as I do, I couldn't get to work by public transport, or cycle, if I wanted to.

There are hold-ups all along my journey. I am relatively happy to put up with the struggle from Handy Cross, down Marlow Road and along Oxford Road in High Wycombe because it's through the centre of a working and residential area and is busy with people going about their daily business. Though life might be bit easier if 'they' made it possible for London Road-bound traffic to get into High Wycombe from the west via the Loudwater junction on the M40. That would take traffic off Handy Cross, Marlow Hill and London Road

But I fail to understand why going towards Oxford along the A40 has been made deliberately slow.

The government once promised the road would be dualled, to provide relief for drivers living in the thousands of new homes built in my town, who work in Oxford and beyond.

But what happened?

The dual carriageways never saw the light of day. Instead the powers-that-be spent a fortune on cycle lanes on either side of the road. As drivers sit in their nose-to-tail queue they can play Spot the Cyclist. On a good trip you might see two.

I filled in a consultation document expressing the view that what was needed was a dual carriageway, along which drivers could travel at a steady speed, thus keeping them happy while cutting pollution. Like most consultations, no-one took any notice.

Cars have brought people the most tremendous freedom. And it's about time people stopped trying to force us out of our cars, using the argument that cars pollute the atmosphere. If we can get machines to land on Mars we can surely come up with pollution-free petrol.

But I reckon that even if that happened, the control freaks who make the rules would still want us on the buses and out of cars because they like ordering people about.

Talking of buses, I was in Devon at the weekend where there was a deal of straight-talking about people using bus services more.

What bus services? was the reaction from locals. They thought there might be one on a Thursday, but they weren't holding their breath.

Readers of Alice in Wonderland will remember the Mad Hatter's Tea Party where Alice was invited to 'have some more tea'.

To which she replied she could hardly have more when she hadn't had a cup in the first place. And it's the same with buses.

Paul Ryan is away