I READ John Goodman’s excellent summary regarding the problems and solutions to the issue of morning traffic congestion at the junction of London Road and Windsor Drive, and Geoff Brewer’s negative letter that relied on some unexplained catastrophic traffic light failure in Beverly, Yorkshire which appears to have no relevance to our current situation.

Unless Mr Brewer has further inside information, a traffic light failure at our roundabout would just return the traffic problem to its present chaotic state.

To leave Devizes on your way to Swindon, the obvious and shortest route is via London Road.

The problem occurs at the Windsor Drive roundabout. The traffic law states that traffic must give way to traffic coming from their right, so in peak times there is always a build-up of traffic as it gives way to traffic coming from Windsor Drive on their right.

The extra distance to the roundabout from Roses’ hardware shop is about a quarter of a mile if you go via Windsor Drive.

In normal times it is not worth taking this route. In peak times you can get to the roundabout much quicker this way because you don’t have to crawl along the London Road.

When you arrive at the roundabout from Windsor Drive, the traffic from Devizes has to give way to you as you are approaching from their right, so you not only arrive at the roundabout earlier, but as you are approaching the roundabout, the traffic on your left has to let you through, thus hampering the flow of traffic along the London Road.

To me, it’s a no brainer. If I wish to head to Swindon in the rush hour I go via Windsor Drive.

If, however, there were traffic lights that restricted traffic from Windsor Drive onto the roundabout to a few cars at a time in peak periods, you would put an end to the stop start chaos on the London Road and help to ease the flow of traffic.

It would then be no longer worthwhile to drive the extra distance to Windsor Drive only to be restricted access to the roundabout.

Of course, this solution, although effective in the short term, will only work with the current traffic volume.

What happens as we increase car ownership and usage will remain unresolved.

PETER FLETCHER

Kempsfield

Devizes