EARLIER this month, the Highways Agency revealed in detail for the first time why it refuses to seal the central reservation on the A64 at Bilbrough Top.

Closing the gap would cause social and commercial disadvantages to residents and businesses, the agency said. And it would force motorists to drive further to cross the A64 at York and Tadcaster flyovers, going against the Government's policy to reduce car use.

At the time, these seemed flimsy arguments. The Government has all but abandoned its original commitment to reduce car use, for example.

But they appear even more inadequate in the light of the latest accident. Yesterday a woman was seriously injured in a collision believed to have happened when her car and a lorry collided at the Bilbrough gap.

We could have predicted the crash; the Highways Agency certainly could. It is just the latest terrible incident at a blackspot where so many have been seriously injured. Statistics and common sense dictate that accidents will continue to happen here as long as the gap remains open.

The Highways Agency accepts that the gap should go. It wants to build a £3.9 million flyover. But the public inquiry into that scheme has only just finished: if it gets the go-ahead the earliest the flyover will open is summer 2004.

In the meantime, there will be more accidents as long as the gap stays open. The Highways Agency has conceded as much: closure would "undoubtedly remove turning manoeuvres across the carriageway from a junction which has proven hazardous over very many years" it said.

It has sealed off another gap nearby, at Colton Lane End, to stop similar hazardous manoeuvres just up the road, and is building an underpass to stop cars crossing the A64 at Copmanthorpe.

To close one gap and not the other makes no sense. To place commercial considerations above people's safety makes no sense. The only common sense course is to close the Bilbrough Top gap immediately. Otherwise the carnage will continue.

Updated: 10:20 Tuesday, November 27, 2001