That's what also makes it the perfect place for an ad, or so Phoenix city officials and firefighters hope.
So far, Phoenix firefighters have turned 10 of their trucks into rolling billboards, carrying public-safety messages about watching children around water and buckling up.
''Firetrucks are designed to get people's attention,'' said Capt. Billy Shields, president of the United Phoenix Fire Fighters Association. ''That's a place where you want to put a message that you want to stick in their heads.''
It's also a way to raise money to fund new community programs. And in cash-strapped economic times, no place is off-limits when it comes to ads.
While Phoenix Mayor Phil Gordon wishes that ''we would not have to resort to that,'' he knows the trade-off.
''I need to make sure our residents have basic services,'' Gordon explained. ''This is a way to bridge the gap and create revenue in a creative way without having to burden taxpayers.''
The firetruck ads in Phoenix began appearing last fall. All 10 trucks were completed in January.
Money from the ads will create a pot of emergency money for fire crews to address needs they encounter on the streets, such as when a family is without food or an elderly person needs a space heater to stay warm. Another portion will boost public-safety programs and anti-drowning efforts. The rest will bankroll ''community building'' projects to improve Phoenix neighborhoods.
None of this would have been possible without eliminating other programs or finding a new funding source, Capt. Tim Knobbe said.
Already, St. Joseph's Hospital and Medical Center in Phoenix has paid $100,000 to sponsor the ads and see its logo on the sides of the trucks.
''There's no space we're not going to put advertising,'' said Gary Kritz, an assistant professor of marketing at Seton Hall University in New Jersey.
We are ''bombarded'' with more than 10,000 messages a day, Kritz said, yet we ignore 95 percent of them.
That hasn't stopped cities across the country from emblazoning ads on everything from the sides of school buses, to the front fenders of police cruisers, to the bottoms of public pools. Still, Phoenix is among very few cities that have expanded the ad blitz to firetrucks.
In Minneapolis, the Fire Department partnered with the anti-smoking organization Quit Plan, accepting $50,000 to put ads on the hose covers of a half-dozen rigs as part of a plan to generate $2 million.
''The local fire chiefs are under huge financial pressure,'' said Jennifer Ashley, communications director for the International Association of Fire Chiefs in Virginia. ''They have to become creative.''
Information from: The Arizona Republic
