DO you suppose there would have been much publicity over 'snow chaos' last weekend if it had been us lot up here and not Home Counties' commuters stuck on ungritted roads?

No, me neither. The media hardly went ballistic when it was our turn on Monday, did they?

But rather than taking perverse pleasure in the South having the rare experience of a winter ordeal East Lancashire road users are only too familiar with, we must be thankful for the ensuing hullabaloo.

Since it was expressed, in a southern accent as it were, the government promptly got the willies about middle class voters being upset and took notice. Like a shot, it promised new laws to force councils to grit roads when snow and ice are forecast, ending the legal get-out that has seen so many roads and pavements in East Lancashire left untreated by local authorities whose claims to do an adequate job need to be taken with a pinch of, er, salt.

About time, but it's a bit much councils have to be forced to do their duty and keep the roads safe. They are not so slow letting them be sprinkled with speed cameras in the name of safety, are they?

Iwonder how Blackburn with Darwen Council can swank about being Council of the Year when so often it has slipped up on this responsibility -- as testified to by the blizzards of letters this newspaper gets about non-gritting and the refusal of its executive to grit all roads as back-bench scrutiny councillors insist.

Last Monday and earlier last month, during another cold snap, drivers were at risk on untreated main roads -- among them the 20-year-old whose plight is told tonight on our Letters Page.

Just two days after buying his car he skidded it on black ice on a major road and wrote it off. Luckily, he was not badly hurt. But because, with a premium of £1,200, he could only afford to insure his car 'third-party' -- he's left with a wreck that will take two years to pay off -- and a bill for the lamp-post from the Council of the Year which says it is doing enough to grit the roads!

Fair? Is it heck as like! Instead of a bill, he should have an apology -- even the ambulance attending his accident was sliding and skidding.

And the rest of us should have a pledge that when the temperature plunges the gritters turn out everywhere -- regardless of the law.