Cop cars parked on freeway shoulders as billboards

Miscellaneous and Personal Stuff I Must Share
1

On I-30 in Fort Worth, off and on for the past couple of weeks, there’s a Fort Worth cop car parked on the left-hand shoulder, facing oncoming traffic, with a “NOW HIRING” sign in the windshield. No cones, no flashing lights, no warning signs - just this cop car pointed the wrong way with an advertisement in the windshield.

I’m no lawyer, and I haven’t bothered to check the various city, county, state and federal laws that govern this sort of thing, but I had the understanding that:
[ul]
[li]you shouldn’t intentionally park a vehicle in the shoulder unless it’s accompanied with various warning paraphernalia like flags, cones, and/or flashing lights (emergencies excepted)[/li][li]it’s unlawful to park a vehicle on a road if it’s pointing in the wrong direction[/li][li]interstate roads are federal roads, and not the forum for the local municipality’s HR department[/li][li]while it might not be illegal, it’s certainly not an efficient use of tax dollars to use a cop car as a billboard[/li][/ul]
My wife is hopping mad over this. I tend more towards the “meh” end of the spectrum, but it does seem at least borderline illegal to me.

2

In California, emergency vehicles are exempt from a lot of traffic laws. I don’t know if that would extend to parking a cruiser backwards on the freeway shoulder for advertising purposes though.

3

Typically, that exemption only applies to vehicles operating in “emergency mode,” which is usually defined as with lights and siren operating. In some cases, it applies with only lights operating, too, but there’s no way it applies in this case.