WHAT on earth is going on with the traffic in High Wycombe? I am genuinely perplexed by the huge inconsistencies during rush hour.

Most towns are busy all the time during the school run period, but on some days the main roads here are almost deserted, leaving you incorrectly to believe it’s a public holiday. One friend I spoke to speculated it was the price of fuel which had stopped people from using their cars.

But then over the last two weeks, the town has been jam packed. Some people blame this on the new lights on Amersham Hill and on the London Road, but any problems there may have been with these appear to have been sorted out. Others told me it was the fault of an accident on the M40 – but surely there hasn’t been one every day recently?

If the London Road was always busy, I could understand it. But it’s not, and you often see gridlock for no apparent reason. Yes there are far too many lights and far too many cars, but give me a modern town where this isn’t the case?

And while I welcome the many rush hour mornings where there is no traffic, this peculiar situation leaves drivers such as me with no idea as to what time to set off to our destinations.

I suggest therefore that the county council tries an experiment and turns off all the traffic lights for one week to see what difference, if any, this makes. And then we’ll know for sure whether or not it’s the lights that are causing this freaky phenomenon.