POLICE patrolling North Yorkshire's roads have admitted they are beginning to dread sunny summer days because so many bikers are losing their lives in accidents across the county.

Fatalities on a country lane near Boroughbridge, and on the A661, near Spofforth, on Wednesday, take the total among bikers in the county to 20 so far this year.

A police spokesman said: "It is getting to the stage where officers look up at the sky in the morning and, if it's clear, resign themselves to the likelihood that they will be dealing with another death.

"We are not saying the motorcyclists are always to blame; everyone out on the roads needs to have the mentality that it is better to look out for each other. But what we must also remember is that each death is a horrible tragedy.

"It represents the destruction of a family, disruption to perhaps dozens of lives - and then there are others who may have been involved. They may have survived, but they may have to live with the physical or mental scars of an accident for the rest of their lives."

It was the growing number of accidents among motorcyclists which prompted North Yorkshire Police to pioneer the Bike Safe scheme in the mid-1990s, which has since been adopted as best practice around the UK.

Police said the two further deaths on Wednesday wouldharden the resolve of officers on patrol who have been urged to take a tougher line with those who flout the rules of the road.

The spokesman said: "Officers on patrol will be vigilant because they know what it is like to have to knock on a stranger's door and tell them they have become a widow."

The motorcyclist who died in the accident on the A661, between Spofforth and Harrogate, was named as John Swiffen, 50, a married paint-er and decorator, from Doncaster.

The identity of a 24-year-old man killed in collision with a car on the road between Branton Green and Great Ouseburn, near Boroughbridge, has not yet been released.