• Strike a blow

    Strike a blow

    It’s a plastic, trumpet-esque object (around a metre in length) that makes a distinctive elephant-like sound any South African soccer fan will immediately recognise. It’s the vuvuzela.

    Football matches – like many sports – are often synonymous with alcohol consumption. For this reason, the vuvuzela has inspired Castrol Magnatec to create what it calls the Vuvuliser – a vuvuzela with a built-in breathalyser – to ensure spectators leave the stadium as safely as they arrived.

    The mechanism is quite elementary; users simply press a button on the device as they blow into it. If the Vuvuliser flashes green, they’re safe to get behind the wheel, while red indicates a blood-alcohol limit that’s over 0.05g per 100 ml, which is higher than the country’s legal driving limit.

    6 September 2016
    Image: Castrol South Africa