NEW crash barriers designed to protect vehicles from veering onto railway lines are not enough to prevent another Selby rail crash, an expert has warned.

Structural engineer Professor John Knapton believes that crash barriers being installed at road over rail bridges across North Yorkshire are still not strong enough to prevent some vehicles breaking through.

On the second anniversary of the disaster at Great Heck, Prof Knapton - an expert at the University of Newcastle-upon-Tyne - said the chances of a similar Selby incident were not as slim as statistics suggest.

As relatives today once again made their way to the railway line where a GNER express and a freight train collided, Prof Knapton said vans and lorries would be able to breach the modern crash barriers installed.

And he said the real danger was complacency - helped by a Highways Agency report last year revealing a rail crash on a par with Selby would only happen once every 300 years.

Prof Knapton said: "This report has bred complacency. It has allowed the Highways Agency and local councils to hide behind it.

"About 25 vehicles a year finish on the railway lines, six of which are struck by a train. In the incidents we have seen this year, we have been fortunate that someone has managed to stop the train.

"The barriers that we are seeing on bridges are a start. But they are only designed to stop cars. It is not uncommon to see lorries and vans come off the road.

"But the barriers just stop cars and the parapets don't stop very much at all. We are not taking seriously the risk of another disaster."

In North Yorkshire alone in the last 12 months, there have been two incidents of vehicles either spinning onto the rail lines or hanging dangerously over parapets, at Poppleton and Selby.

Prof Knapton said: "There is always the possibility that there could be another disaster. It is very concerning. We have the perception that train travel should be very safe."

Brian Jones, client officer at North Yorkshire County Council, said: "These crash barriers won't stop every possible event. They are designed to deflect. You just can't stop everything."

Updated: 08:17 Friday, February 28, 2003