Simply amazing.
Traffic Scotland/Screenshot by Nick Hide/Roadshow
“Snowbegone Kenobi, reporting for duty.” Imagine hearing that over a dispatch radio. Guess what? It’s a real name, for a real snow plow in Scotland, because the Scots clearly know how to have more fun with things — this is from the country that gave us Boaty McBoatface, after all.
On Friday, social media began picking up on the fact Scotland names its whole snow plow fleet and a map of the current active plows began pushing into viral status. On first glance, some of the names may not make sense to people in the US, but note the country calls these vehicles “gritters.” That makes “Gritney Spears” make much more sense.
Who else do we have here? Ah, yes, “Gangsta Granny Gritter” was out for deployment, as was “Gritty Gritty Bang Bang.” Let’s not forget about “License to Chill” or “For Your Ice Only.” The James Bond references are strong with the Scots. “Snowkemon Go” is another name worthy of our round of applause.
Then there’s “Fred.” Oh, Fred. What happened there, little dude? Imagine being on that Scottish gritter crew, when your pals get to plow through the dreaded snow in machines named “Han Snow-Lo” and “Ready Spready Go.” At least Fred has a couple other toned-down (possibly Simpsons-related) names to run with, like “Mr. Plow” and “Snowball.”
The BBC reports the practice of naming the plows goes back to 2006 when the Scottish Transport Ministry encouraged wee school children to come up with funny monikers for them. It launched its online tracker in 2016.
We salute you, Scotland, for the unexpected Friday laughs.
