What’s Wrong With This Picture?

Posted on August 29th, 2008 12:59pm by Dave Moore
Filed under Advertising, Transportation

OK, other than the fact that it’s underexposed. The answer: DART is apparently buying advertisements on trucks that don’t do much but drive around and clog up our streets. That’s not a very smart thing for a rapid-transit group to do. Or is it? (”Gee, if I just took a DART train, I wouldn’t be stuck behind this big truck advertising DART right now.”)

21 comments

  1. Oh, I thought those trucks are part of the new Dart system catering to illegal immigrants.

    @ 1:15 pm on August 29, 2008

  2. Those trucks anger me so much, as if Dallas didn’t have enough traffic and pollution problems. They drive around McKinney Ave all day, particularly during rush hour where they just get in the way.

    When I saw that DART had taken ads on them I was especially ticked off, the buses are everywhere and already have tons of ad space on them, why are our tax dollars being spent to buy ads on another vehicle that gets in the way, if you think you must advertise in the manner put the ad on your own damn bus.

    @ 1:34 pm on August 29, 2008

  3. Are they not delivery trucks with ads attached to the sides?

    @ 1:35 pm on August 29, 2008

  4. Nope, all they do all day is drive around with ads on them.

    @ 1:48 pm on August 29, 2008

  5. I don’t think that DART’s problems are going to be cured by raising awareness about DART’s existence. This is just plain dumb.

    @ 1:55 pm on August 29, 2008

  6. So, there’s where the extra billion went…

    @ 1:57 pm on August 29, 2008

  7. DART = Driving Aimlessly, Ruining Traffic

    @ 2:09 pm on August 29, 2008

  8. Funny that the other advertisement is for the Dallas Police Department. A two-fer on wasting taxpayers money.

    @ 2:19 pm on August 29, 2008

  9. Just picture it…some city “big wigs” are sitting around a conference table with an advertising group hashing out the very best way to spend the taxpayers money to increase riders on our mass transit system and this is what they settled on after high-fiving each other on another job well done! Honestly, I would rather find out that sombody’s kid owns the trucking company and advertising agency and needed the business. You can fix that problem with better oversite but you can’t fix dumb. Think these are the same people who put bunny ears on the buses?

    @ 2:25 pm on August 29, 2008

  10. They are probably the same people who took the bunny ears off of buses. The hop-a-bus was awesome!

    @ 2:27 pm on August 29, 2008

  11. Good point and I think you may be correct. I did have to smile everytime I saw one of those buses coming down the street. What did happen to our hop-a-buses?

    @ 2:29 pm on August 29, 2008

  12. Gee…if Dart only had it’s own vehicles driving around they could use….

    @ 2:51 pm on August 29, 2008

  13. Plains Capital Bank has a truck that rides through the Park Cities advertising just their bank. It has been driving around for months — especially around Preston Center which is already so jammed up with traffic. Really bad advertising idea.

    @ 3:14 pm on August 29, 2008

  14. @Dawn: And there’s the rub. I’m sure the drivers are told to orbit high-traffic areas to capture eyeballs. Billboards belong in intersections as much as telephone poles.

    @ 3:21 pm on August 29, 2008

  15. i wish people would just take a bus, without a car. That really shuts folks up.

    @ 4:22 pm on August 29, 2008

  16. I’m free market and all, but can we ban rolling billboards? It seems they have an impact on our poor air quality and they add to traffic congestion.

    I have a feeling the people who thought of rolling billboards also like to spam your email and send junk snail mail.

    @ 4:40 pm on August 29, 2008

  17. I think there’s probably an ordinance that could be applied to these trucks, if someone would do the homework and the city had the guts to enforce it. They are distracting, obnoxious, and contribute to pollution and congestion. At least the ad kiosks stayed in one place. I am in favor of a specific ordinance banning them if needed.

    @ 5:13 pm on August 29, 2008

  18. Might, might cause 1 in 100,000 people who see it to go ahead and take the DART downtown or to the zoo instead of driving. Better than the DISD advertising they were running at the AAC a few years back. And only a little worse than the run in hospital advertising.

    @ 4:39 am on August 30, 2008

  19. last time i checked the city’s ordinances, there IS one on the books banning these rolling billboard trucks inside dallas city limits. i hear they get ticketed, but only occasionally. seems the trucks’ owners are willing to roll the dice … and their tires ….

    @ 10:47 pm on August 30, 2008

  20. Having worked for a mobile billboard company a few years ago (not the one in the pic), I can state very accurately that mobile billboard vehicles are NOT illegal in Dallas or any other city for that matter (we were part of a national network).

    BUT, that only applies to billboards that are on paper or mounted on panels (the truck in this pic has a series of three-sided panels that rotate).

    Vehicles with video display screens, mobile televisions, or any other electronic animation devices (think Jumbotron on wheels) are illegal. They are considered distracting and dangerous to the drivers near them.

    There is one or two companies in Dallas using this technology, neither of which has a very good reputation and an inability to produce eyeball counts, and their vehicles have been cited numerous times by Dallas Police.

    @ 5:06 pm on August 31, 2008

  21. Wouldn’t it be cheaper to just advertise on Dart buses and trains?

    @ 3:02 pm on September 1, 2008