I NOTICE that the contractors at Bilborough Top use the old type of sign showing a lane closure ahead, urging 'Get In Lane'. Many drivers, in the great British tradition, get into a single queue at the earliest opportunity, creating a long tailback while leaving a vacant lane.

These queues can back up to before the signs and can clog earlier junctions.

Any driver using the empty lane is seen as a queue-barger. Annoyance, frustration, and potential danger is the result.

This absurd situation can be totally obviated by signs displaying "Use both lanes and merge in turn".

This much fairer system is increasingly seen on roadworks elsewhere in the UK and it works so well that, in my view, contractors should be forced to adopt it. It should be enshrined as the norm in the Highway Code.

Hugh Barwell,

Fulford Road,

York.

Updated: 09:31 Thursday, February 24, 2005