Caltex Road Star

For the past eight or so years Caltex have been the major sponsor of the Road Star campaign in Dubai. During the promotion a group comprising Caltex staff, a Radio 2 personality and a senior police officer pull over an unsuspecting member of the public who has been driving well and shower him or her with gifts. They go out twice a day over the week of the campaign and dispense gifts to two lucky drivers in each session.

A cynic might suggest that being able to find only four motorists a day epitomises the typical standard of driving in Dubai. So I have.

Caltex's largesse takes the form of Dh 750 in 'cold, hard cash', goody-bag and a Bluetooth headset. We are told in the radio adverts that to qualify we have to wear seatbelts, use indicators and stay off the mobile phone. It's not exactly rocket science, is it?

On the radio today, the Road Star campaign was being flogged to death by a senior executive from Caltex aided and abetted by the D.J. They went on ad nauseam about how using a mobile phone while driving was even worse than drink-driving for slowing driver reaction time. Apparently something like 70% of the driver's attention is taken up with the phone call leaving insufficient for driving. This is then made worse if the driver has one hand holding the handset to his ear.

So in their wisdom, Caltex give away Bluetooth headsets. I was unable to get through to Radio 2 by phone or text message (after stopping my car, obviously!) to ask how Caltex could justify encouraging drivers to talk on the phone while driving.

Perhaps each recipient of this gift will only ever use it in the shopping mall, cramming the device into his ear so that everyone can see the little blue LED and be appropriately impressed.