Firefighters had to strap a car to a fire engine to stop it falling on to the East Coast main line only hours after a van smashed through a wall and was hit by a train, it emerged last night.

The Renault Clio was teetering on the edge of a bridge in Berwick, Northumberland, after hitting a wall in similar circumstances to those which claimed the life of van driver John Fletcher, in Lincolnshire.

The East Coast line was closed for two hours following the accident on Thursday night. The 17-year-old car driver was flown by police helicopter to Wansbeck District Hospital where last night, he was understood to be in a critical condition.

Only five days ago, the Health and Safety Executive's (HSE) year-long inquiry into the Selby train crash predicted that a similar tragedy would not occur for another 300 years.

And last night, structural engineer Professor John Knapton, of Newcastle University, called for the report to be withdrawn and completely revised after the disaster near Lincoln, which eerily, occurred on the anniversary of the Selby crash.

Prof Knapton, who has helped lead The Northern Echo's campaign for improvements to scores of crumbling bridge barriers, also claimed that the HSE's role as an all-powerful body needed urgently reviewing.

"The Department of Transport should e-mail every local authority now, tell them to stop messing about and get it sorted."

He added that every dilapidated barrier in the country could be improved for only £10m in the space of three months - instead of the new report's call for authorities to spend 15 months talking about the issue.

Last month, The Northern Echo revealed how, since the Selby disaster, 27 vehicles had ended up on rail lines after crashing through barriers.

Last night, a spokesman for the HSE said the report would not be withdrawn and that it would press ahead with risk assessments of about 10,000 sites over the next year