​Scotland Names Ice Gritters 'Gritty Gritty Bang Bang', 'Ready Spready Go' And 'Mr Plow'

Snow is a magical, wonderful phenomenon that brings out the big kid in practically every single one of us. As soon as you see a single flake fall from the sky, you make grand plans to sack work off to spend the day playing snowball fights with your mates and drinking hot toddies.

Snow's fucking great - apart from when it isn't, like when you realise you actually do need to get to work, and that the roads are in total chaos. Wuh oh.

Enter Scotland's gang of ice gritters, who not only save the day by spreading grit on the country's icy roads, but also have some heroic names to match.

Back in 2006, Transport for Scotland decided to run a competition in Scottish primary schools, asking pupils to drum up the names for a fleet of gritters. And boy, did they come up trumps.

Kids across the country racked their brains for the best and most inventive names - including Grittie McVittie, Gritty Gritty Bang Bang, Ready Spready Go, Luke Snowalker, Sir Salter Scott, Gritty Gonzalez, Sir Andy Flurry and Mr Plow.

BEAR Scotland

There's also the likes of Salty Tom, Fred, Jack, MrsMcGritter, Gritallica, Snow Destroyer, Rainbow and Sprinkles. Absolute heroes.

And better still, you can also track them to see what each gritter is up to, with a real-time map showing the network of vehicles going about their gritty business.

Traffic Scotland/Crown/Esri

A spokesperson from BEAR Scotland - which operates just under 100 gritters in the North West and North East of Scotland - said: "A few winters ago we got involved with a competition to help name some of our 32-tonne gritters, and reached out to local primary schools in our areas to help us come up with some names for the vehicles.

"We had a great response from the schools that were involved with the competition, with some excellent entries submitted."

"Our teams that visited the schools all commented on how the pupils were taking on board the information about how our winter operatives help keep the trunk roads clear of ice and snow each year.

"We now have the likes of Sprinkles, MrsMcGritter, Sir Grits-a-lot and Gritty Gritty Bang Bang out working on trunk roads across the north of Scotland."

Rest of the UK: take heed, and let no heavy machinery ever have a bog-standard name again.

Topics: Weather, UK News, UK, Scotland

Jess Hardiman

Jess is a journalist at LADbible who graduated from Manchester University with a degree in Film Studies, English Language and Linguistics - indecisiveness at its finest, right there. She also works for FOODbible and its sister page Seitanists, which are both a safe haven for her to channel a love for homemade pasta, fennel and everything else in between. You can contact Jess at [email protected].

@Jess_Hardiman