found this article while looking for something else the other day:

this is the full text of the article:

“A PUSH to bring more digital advertisements to Melbourne’s tram stops has been blocked over concerns moving signs will distract drivers and cause traffic accidents in peak hour.

The Victorian Civil and Administrative Tribunal is set to hear 43 separate applications against four separate councils after permits for the signs, submitted by Adshel Outdoor Advertising, were knocked back or adjusted.

Yarra, Port Phillip, Boroondara and Moonee Valley city councils refused to allow a host of proposed signs after advice from VicRoads that moving ads were a safety risk.

Applications for moving boards in less busy areas were also told they could only go ahead if the signs remained still for no less than 30 seconds.

But the popular advertising company, responsible for providing live updates of last year’s AFL Grand Final at CBD tram stations, has contested these decisions in VCAT as it pushes to ramp up its digital signage across the city.

VCAT deputy president Helen Gibson said the decision, due in October, would eventually come down to state government guidelines for safety around public transport.”

great how kieran from the herald sun describes adshel as a “popular advertising company” for providing a service that probably no one who cares about football either needed or noticed (they’d have been watching the game, and could look on their smart phone if not) — hahaha, where is your source on this alleged popularity kieran? cash for comment kieran you great journalist of integrity you?

i had wondered why adshel would install video screens across melbourne cbd but fail to take advantage of their “full potential” to be repulsive and invasive pieces of shit.

i knew that they had this on their product specifications (see purple box i added for emphasis):

so i kind of rashly assumed from this (characteristically) that there was some legal restriction against video advertising on roadside sites.

but this didn’t explain how there could be so many video advertising screen on roadside sites around the city of melbourne already — if there is a legal restriction, why does it not apply to the many huge video advertising screens already in operation?

anyway, it looks like sometime after october (when the ‘wheels of justice’ have turned once more in the favour of an anti-social profit-driven corporation, against the decisions of councils and the advice of the public road authority with a legitimate public safety concern) we can look forward to video ads on our tram stops (with sound too perhaps?).

i’d love to be proven wrong about this decision, but i doubt adshel would have invested in so many digital screens across melbourne if they didn’t receive legal advice that they had a high chance of victory on appeal.

the case for abolishing roadside advertising on safety concerns alone is very strong — while laws are passed and strictly policed to prevent driver distraction in some areas (mobile phone usage particularly), billboard blight continues to grow, despite having the explicit intention of distracting drivers.

we are not allowed to look at digital screens inside our cars, even if this is where our maps happen to be these days (was it illegal to have a melways on your lap?), but we can look at a huge digital screen outside the car while it flashes some kind of irrelevant and sexy for-profit nonsense (as we drive a ton of metal through a busy intersection with hundreds of pedestrians).

even the for-profit media-advertising system has allowed itself to notice the ridiculousness of the situation:

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/03/02/technology/02billboard.htm

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/dave-meslin/driven-to-distraction-the_b_5563176.html

anyway, all this road safety concern shit misses the point entirely — the advertising industry and the for-profit media it supports has got us barrelling headlong into the collapse of global technological civilisation… this will make a few car crashes seem like a quaint and rather enviable problem for a society to have.

 

Categories: posts