Amey, the company responsible for maintaining the motorway and trunk road network in south-west Scotland, have opened their public gritter naming appeal via an online portal.
And entries will be accepted until Monday January 17 2022, when a shortlist of names and winners will be announced.
A similar appeal last winter led to over 2000 names being submitted by the public; with the newly christened gritters joining such classics as “Charles Rennice MackinSlush”, “Snowcially Distanced”, “Sir Grits Hoy”, “Sleetwood Mac”, “Skid Vicious” and the Harry Potter-themed “You’re A Blizzard, Harry”.
While the majority of entries were from the UK, Amey received gritter name suggestions from as far away as the USA, Tasmania and Russia. A list of named gritters can be viewed on the South-West Trunk Roads website.
The South-West gritter fleet can be followed on the @SWTrunkRoads Facebook and Twitter channels and will appear live on the nationwide Traffic Scotland Gritter Tracker.
Scotland’s tradition of coming up with inventive and fun names for their gritter fleet has gone viral on social media and made headlines around the world.
In 2020, Amey’s south-west fleet, with their distinctive bright orange livery attracted the attention of IRN-BRU®, with gritter “Grits You Thru” joining the winter fleet in January 2021. This year, another iconic Scottish treat has joined the fleet with staff at family-run bakery Tunnock’s selecting the name “Caramelt Wafer”.
To celebrate, Amey and Tunnock’s will be running a Snowball Challenge on the @SWTrunkRoads Facebook and Twitter channels to guess how many Tunnock’s Snowballs can fit into one of these gritter vehicles. This Challenge has also launched today and is running to Friday, 17 December. The winner, who will be announced on Monday, will receive their own model gritter and a Tunnock’s hamper. The competition is only open to UK residents.
