Vehicles parked across footpaths in a recent police recruitment advert were "not ideal", but didn't break advertising rules.
The advert, called 'Freeze' and promoted by the police as their "most entertaining recruitment video yet", featured dozens of real cops performing stunts, helping members of the public and doing strange dances.
Twice in the three-minute clip, they're forced to avoid vehicles parked across the footpath.
In the first instance, an officer jumps through the open door of a courier van. A minute later, an officer dives head-first over the bonnet of a car parked in a shopping area.
"A pedestrian is forced to walk into the road to avoid the parked car," A Smith said in a complaint to the Advertising Standards Authority (ASA).
"A driver or person in charge of a vehicle must not stop, stand or park the vehicle on a footpath or on a cycle path," they said, quoting legislation.
The ASA said the scenes were "not ideal", but only "fleeting".
"The chair noted one scene showed a car in a driveway, not parked on the footpath," it said in its ruling.
"The other was parked in a shopping area. The chair took into account the advertisement had an overall lighthearted tone and the actions of the officers in rolling over the bonnet of the car were hyperbolic in nature."
The complaint had no grounds to proceed, it ruled.
A separate complaint about the advert's use of a Samoan man dressed as Sikh is being handled by the police directly with the complainant, Stuff reported last week.
Newshub.
