LIFE is safer and healthier than it has ever been, so we find it harder to accept that things still go wrong.

The Selby rail disaster is a classic example: no one could have foreseen the set of circumstances that caused three vehicles to come into collision with such devastating consequences. Nevertheless, a worried public seeks the impossible reassurance that it will never happen again.

The media is blamed for stoking up these anxieties. A terrible disaster like this attracts massive attention, on rolling television news stations and the Internet as well as in newspapers. Such coverage meets the public appetite for information, but the media is attacked for hype and speculation. Indeed, readers have written to the Evening Press expressing these very criticisms.

But the revolution in news gathering and publishing is also a force for the public good. The question-and-answer session between rail bosses and the public on the Evening Press Internet site is an excellent example.

For 90 minutes last night, people were able to put their questions about the railways directly to those who run them.

Contributions ranged geographically from Northumberland to London, and topically from technical queries about the cause of the Selby tragedy to requests for information on future timetables.

Anyone reading the debate, published on page 12 of tonight's paper and on the website in full, will come away better informed.

It is the role of the Evening Press not only to report a disaster like this comprehensively and sensitively, but also to seek answers to the many questions it raises.

Thanks to the new technology we can do this more directly than ever.

Jonathan Metcalfe of GNER and Robin Gisby of Railtrack gave thorough answers to all the e-mailed questions.

They could not promise an end to railway accidents. But they did explain in impressive detail what has been done and what is being done to improve rail safety.

These explanations should help to quell passenger anxieties prompted by this dreadful accident.

Updated: 12:05 Friday, March 09, 2001