Using Your Mobile Phone When Topping Up With Oil

Saturday, 26. September 2009

Now here’s an interesting piece of information (not that all I provide isn’t interesting), but have you ever been on the forecourt of a fuel station and the damned mobile has gone off which you have then sneakily answered or checked out the text message, believing to be out of vision of the person on the till? Then been screamed at through the pump loudspeaker for putting everyone’s life at risk and dying of embarrassment in the process. Yep, we’ve all been there. Well Texaco have launched a new service for motorists who are confused over the exact grade of oil to use when topping up. The service, wait for it, is a text service provided by Chevron Global Lubricants, you text them your car registration number, whilst on the forecourt, and they immediately text you back the correct Havoline oil to purchase. In the same way as you can do it on the Halfords web site. So my question is – have Texaco really thought this one through, given the fact that by simply holding our mobile phone on a forecourt we run the risk, apparently, of blowing us and all around us to Kingdom come. If, as I have forcibly been led to believe for years, this is true I think someone at Texaco had better check their insurance policies! On the other hand could we possibly have been lied to for all these years? But to be on the safe side it might be worth avoiding Texaco garages, you just never know! By Graham Hill