SUCH hope and expectations for a new era of trouble-free motoring accompanied the opening of a new stretch of Oxford's A34 in November 1974.

Here, the section between the Peartree roundabout and Woodstock Road opened to traffic for the very first time after a construction job that came in at £131,000.

Our article at the time expressed the hope that the stretch would 'relieve traffic congestion' and solve many of Oxford's travel woes.

Motorists using the piece of road for the very first time on November 7 noticed that the clean-up job wasn't quite finished, with piles of earth and diggers littering the roadside and very few safety barriers.

Whether the A34 has gone on to provide the driving utopia promised in 1974 is debatable, but admittedly there was far less traffic on the roads 44 years ago.