Detailed by The Local, residents of the Swedish town of Eslov have complained so much about the loud music playing on the speaker of the local ice cream truck that the ice cream company plans to silence the jingles in favor of silent text messages. Residents filed an official complaint about the music due to an increase in volume during the winter months. According to Engelholm ice-cream president Carl Gustaf Gudmundsson, the driver increased the volume in order to attract more kids and adults out of the home since most are inside staying warm.
Speaking about the alternative notification process, Gudmundsson said “We will put a message in the letterbox to these households so that they can be notified via text message instead.” Presumably, the residents of the home will have to sign up for text message alerts when the truck is in the neighborhood. It’s somewhat similar to the concept of food trucks using Twitter to alert interested followers where the truck will be parked that day.
However, it’s likely that the driver will have to send these alerts each time the truck visits the neighborhood, potentially to residents that aren’t even home at the time. Assuming the driver owns a smartphone, he or she will have to bring up a saved list of numbers to send a mass text before driving around the neighborhood. However, the driver only visits the neighborhood once a month, thus it shouldn’t be a huge burden on the truck owner.
Interestingly, this isn’t the first time that ice cream truck noise has been in the news in Sweden. Recently, a local businessman in the municipality of Malmö was prosecuted for drilling a hole into the tire of an ice cream truck. The reason behind the vandalism was the loud music playing from the speaker on the truck.
