What is to be done about the heartbreaking casualty figures on the county's roads this year?

With 52 dead already by November, we are heading for a truly terrible record.

Every one of the 52 deaths carries with it a tale of grief and shattered families. Our mothers, brothers, husbands and children are, if the statistics are to be believed, more at risk than ever.

The answer, predictably, is that there is no easy solution.

We have too much traffic on our roads, many are little more than widened country lanes and it has to be said that standards of driving are getting worse.

Beware of any campaign to cut the number of deaths that does not propose a wide range of solutions.

For starters, we need stricter speed enforcement - preferably by human being instead of just cameras - better education and tougher tests for drivers and harsher penalties for those who kill and maim while behind the wheel if we are to have a chance of reversing the trend.

Until then, more families are going to be left to mourn loved ones, as two of them are today in Oxfordshire.