I REFER to your article and editorial comment on the subject of road over rail bridge safety (February 26).

A front page picture (van blown into crash barrier) illustrates very well the problem of setting priorities for capital spending on safety. The barrier had clearly prevented a cross-over accident on a busy trunk road where the vehicle would otherwise have probably ploughed into oncoming traffic.

But suppose this same incident had happened on a single carriageway road without the same safety hardware in place - there may well have been multiple casualties. Should this mean that all roads should be made into dual-carriage-ways with central crash barriers? Of course not because the cost would be prohibitive.

Improving bridge safety by modifying bridge approach ramps, installing new or additional barriers etc should be prioritised so that the resources are directed to give the maximum benefit in terms of reducing the accident risk.

Without this approach the result could be the diversion of some capital away from other safety improvements on our road system on which each day the death toll equates to that at Great Heck.

David Randon,

Blue Slates Close,

Wheldrake, York.

...MAY I congratulate you on your leader, 'Safer bridges save lives' (February 26).

The only comment I would make is that you failed to pinpoint the reason for the general reaction of Whitehall - namely the double standards on safety, and accident investigation, that are applied to road and rail.

Heck is being treated as simply another road accident - not a railway accident - and as such is something tolerated day in day out without question.

"At least 300 years before another Heck" sums up the attitude that it was simply a freak accident so we can forget about it. This fails to recognise that in the past three years there have been more than 30 cases of road vehicles ending up on railway lines.

Whitehall may be hoping that Heck will simply be forgotten about but it is unlikely that the people of North Yorkshire will do likewise.

After the accident at Nocton perhaps the "experts" in Whitehall will be checking their calculations to make sure they did not get a decimal point in the wrong place - maybe they meant three years not 300?

Roger Bastin,

Treasurer,

Transport 2000 North Yorkshire,

Temple Lane,

Copmanthorpe, York.

Updated: 10:24 Wednesday, March 06, 2002