Warning signs and special road markings should be considered to prevent another Selby-style rail accident, a report said today.

New safety barriers could be erected on some roads near rail lines, the report from the Health and Safety Commission suggested.

In another report ordered following the February 2001 Selby crash, the Highways Agency said today that it was reviewing standards of safety barriers on major roads.

But it added that there were "no serious shortcomings" in the standard of barriers.

Accepting both reports today, transport minister John Spellar said work on the development of plans to apportion responsibility and costs of improvements at roads close to railway lines should be developed for England by June this year.

Ten people were killed in the Selby disaster in which a Land Rover which came off the M62 ended up on the East Coast main line causing a two-train crash.

The Land Rover driver, Gary Hart, 37, of Strubby, Lincolnshire, was last month jailed for five years after being convicted of causing death by dangerous driving.

Today's Highways Agency report said a revised safety barrier standard should be issued later this year. The Agency will also be publishing new frameworks for identifying sites where there was a high risk of cars getting onto rail lines.

The HSC report also called for an assessment programme identifying high risk locations but both reports reckoned the risk of a serious accident arising from a vehicle leaving a major road and reaching a rail line was extremely low.

Richard Clifton, who chaired the HSC's working group and who is head of the Health and Safety Executive's railways directorate, said: "We propose a series of risk assessments to filter out lower risk locations and identify those sites where further safety measures are deemed necessary.

"This could entail anything from changing road markings to erecting new safety barriers."

Ginny Clarke, who chaired the other working group and who is the Highways Agency's chief highways engineer, said: "The tragic accident at Selby was an extremely rare event but this does not mean that we are complacent."

She added that today's recommendations would "allow us to continue to work to ensure the safety of road users on the strategic road network.

Mr Spellar said: "I must stress how important it is that highway authorities and rail infrastructure providers work together to assess the sites on their networks where vehicles might get onto the rail network and to take what action, if any they consider necessary to try to prevent this."

A jury at Leeds Crown Court decided that Hart had fallen asleep at the wheel of his Land Rover before it plunged off the M62 and continued along a steep road embankment and onto the track and into the path of a GNER Newcastle to Leeds express train. Hart telephoned police to warn them of the danger but was unable to prevent the express derailing and going into the path of a freight train.