I’m one of those people who will do almost anything to avoid drawing random attention to myself in public or social situations.
This is a deeply-ingrained characteristic that likely started when I was an elementary school student who in school after school was the “new kid.” For students back then — and this is probably still true for new kids everywhere — the surest way to get beat up on the playground was to stand out in any way. Therefore, I would literally attempt to camouflage.
My efforts to don the invisibility cloak were inevitably unsuccessful and therefore I still wound up being chased down and pounded and regularly had chairs pulled out from under me in the classroom; but as hope springs eternal, I most certainly was not going to wear anything that would call attention to myself. Hence my life-long lack of comfort with any wardrobe other than the most basic shirt and jeans.
Not surprisingly, I have essentially worn the same clothes for the past 55 years. Anything to blend in. And while the rational thinkers among us will say that it’s unlikely that as a 65-year-old I’m going to get flattened by some random miscreant sticking his leg out in front of me as I walk through a restaurant (also known as a lunchroom), I’m nevertheless going to play it safe and stay camouflaged. Because as my lizard brain will say, you really never know where those people will turn up.
I have allowed this fully-internalized behavior to carry through to most of the cars that I have owned and driven.
Therefore, what I call “car warning stickers” equally baffle and fascinate me.
More and more, I’ve noticed these things plastered to vehicles all around me. And “plastered” is an appropriate term since often the stickers are just slapped onto cars in quite odd places and at random angles. Like, who exactly is being warned by the Student Driver sticker in the photo above? Maybe someone who is just about to t-bone that Tesla, but who might be dissuaded right before impact? No, actually, in this case, I think that someone has put the sticker on the car largely to insult the driver. It’s the automotive equivalent of pantsing except (somewhat) permanent and on-going.
Thanks, Dad. I mean, just look at that thing. A 16 year old driving that to school is the equivalent of 10 year old Jeff in 1971 showing up at Raleigh’s Sherwood-Bates Elementary School wearing bib overalls, a straw hat, and clogs.
Or mistakenly forgetting and mentioning that he had eaten fried rice for breakfast, and being told by the teacher that he was lying since “no one” would eat fried rice for breakfast.
Actually, clogs were on the upswing in popularity in 1971…If your name was Björn and you were from Sweden.
Although I suspect the kids at Sherwood-Bates would still have decided to lock Björn in a closet and call him whatever derogatory names existed for people from Sweden. They may have been 4th and 5th graders, but for some reason they were extraordinarily well educated in the whole range of nasty names for people from anywhere other than Raleigh.
Speaking though of school, I found one of the most convoluted Student Driver sticker situations this past summer on a converted (barely) school bus. Parked at a trailhead just down the road from me, this vehicle profoundly freaked out my friend, who was visiting me from somewhere where citizens do not routinely repurpose off-cast school buses. I just found the whole thing deliciously meta.
In an M.C. Escher kind of way. I am figuring that this was the exact intent of the person who owns that bus.
Suffice to say, the standard driver’s education car — caught here one morning in front of me doing the “Brake, because we are going around a curve. Aaaaayyyyyyeeeeeee!” move common to student drivers — also carries suitable labeling, but it’s rather subdued and does not manage to cast shade upon the operator or function.
The marking of a driver’s ed car is somewhat similar to the original function of the Baby On Board sign introduced to the world — as a result of Boston-area traffic — in the mid-1980s. Michael Lerner’s initial warning sign was simple and to the point, alerting anyone who might strike the so-labeled vehicle that they’d be endangering baby-life…which is for some reason worse than endangering older-human-life.
Or maybe, as some have put forward, the idea was that with a baby on board, the driver would be distracted by baby passenger behaviors which run the gamut from projectile vomiting to screaming to sleeping (whereupon in the case of the latter the parent would likely attempt to take your life should you do anything to cause a disruption of that rare and blessed state, I say from personal experience that by even mentioning brings up some measure of PTSD).
The genuine, original article, from the Safety 1st company does refer to the baby on its packaging as “Your Precious Cargo.” So maybe there is a little attitude inserted.
Then again, this is the same company that markets the ironically named “plug protectors,” which in my opinion protect nothing and only succeed in delaying a child’s knowledge of electricity. “Babies” don’t require protection from outlets since babies usually cannot stand sufficiently upright to carry metal objects such as forks or screw drivers to stick into outlets (Their fingers are much too fat. I know this. I had babies. No offense, but in terms of functionality their fingers are practically worthless.). By the time they are old enough to do so…well let’s just say that no one is going to be able to learn about electricity without a little hands-on exploration.
Thank you Michael Lerner, no wonder we have a hard time producing scientists and engineers in this country nowadays.
I hated “plug protectors” almost as much as the infernal “drawer and cabinet door locks” which basically do nothing other than get in the way of adults as they attempt to open drawers and cabinets to find and retrieve things for their babies.
Those of you who never raised babies or only did so before the 1990s have no idea what you missed.
Anyhow, whatever attitude may have been implied by the original Baby on Board sign is no longer enough for modern generations who need to turn the ‘tude and individualization up to eleven.
I’m rather sure that whoever ordered that “cool baby with sunglasses” sticker probably figured that s/he was nearly the only person who had ever thought of affixing that to their car.
This person may have two babies on board and perhaps needs to more carefully monitor fluid consumption (or at least invest in diapers). Regardless, I question why anyone would want to announce the fact that their babies are freely micturating on their vehicle’s upholstery. Again, precisely who is this warning, and specifically about what?
The saddest thing, at least to me, is when the stickers expire before the vehicle. This poor person seems to have had warning stickers randomly slapped onto their Mercedes and then found that they were difficult to peel off when it was no longer necessary to indicate a cargo full of babies. This vehicle is likely now doomed (for lack apparently of a razor blade and some nail polish remover) to drive around with these sad and faded stickers.
I suppose that if the Mercedes owner manages to hold on to the vehicle for roughly another dozen years they might be able to cover the Baby on Board things with a Please Be Patient — Student Driver sticker.
At that point, they may discover that those don’t peel off particularly well either. This one — which barely fits the rear hatch – looks to be in the process of being removed; likely by the “Student Driver” who may not be so keen on having a sticker that tells everyone that this car is being operated by what someone has determined to be a less than competent driver.
Which is why I say that if one is going to have such a warning sticker on their — or their child’s — vehicle, humor should be embraced. “Expect Anything” and “My First Rodeo” (this photo sent to me by friends in Seattle) seems to do that trick.
Likewise. I can’t tell if this sticker has been placed on the vehicle by its owner — who is just leaning in to their less than stellar driving skills — or by someone who wants to make fun of the driver.
Speaking of fun, I should note that at this point, we’ve had a lot of fun with the car sticker thing. But to quote the great 20th century philosopher — The Cat in the Hat — “Look at me! Look at me! Look at me now! It’s fun to have fun but you have to know how,” part of knowing “how” to have fun is to place it its context; and some of that context is that automotive warning signs are sometimes about actual safety and not entirely the “Look at Me!” thing that we’ve covered thus far.
For example, if you’ve driven most new cars from the past half-dozen years, there’s a good chance you’ve had this particular warning signal pop up on your car’s display upon turning off the car. When I first encountered this on a rental car, I stifled (or maybe not) a “Good lord, who needs to be told THAT?!” response. Then again…
Such warnings, such as this public service announcement billboard — from a photo sent to me by a friend in Chicago who wanted me to explain it to him — have now become more prevalent. And so yeah, this is indeed a thing. An entire article could be written about how social/political/economic trends have had intersected with automotive-related behavior, but for the moment we can note that there are lots and lots of children riding in cars driven by tired and distracted caregivers. These adults are moving kids from place to place when there’s simply no other place for these children to be other than in the car. Under these circumstances, accidents will happen. In this case, a bit of inwardly-focused warning to the driver seems legitimate.
That at least explains categories 1 and 3 in the above graphic. Category #2 is one I have personal connection with in so far as my adventures as a yout “gaining access” to a vehicle on my own. All I did was to end up rolling the vehicle down a driveway into a garage door. But I suppose that if it had been summer, the windows were rolled up, and I couldn’t find the hidden door release. Well, there you go.
So maybe there is a purpose for those “Baby on Board” stickers. Next time you see a fresh one on a parked car, just glance inside to make sure that there’s not only a baby on board.
OK, that’s the end of the PSA that gives a legitimate safety context to some car warning signs and stickers. Sufficiently sobered, we now return to our otherwise silly programming.
Maybe the VW driver I recently encountered just likes stickers. But I also suspect that they are subject to random and uncontrollable bouts of self expression. This gives rise to their need to warn about… Let’s just say, lots of things.
Alrighty then.
I gave serious thought to staying in my car to wait and see who came out of the grocery store and got into this Golf. But after giving that some thought, I decided against it.
Why?
Because I have this sense that a lot of car warning sticker people are caught in a kind of liminal space; somewhere between wanting to avoid contact and fly under the radar and an equally compelling need to self-express. I kind of understand that. In this case, I took the whole situation as kind of a warning that I should give this person their space and leave their anonymity intact.
I just wish they’d put their stickers on straight.
In the 90s it was quite common to see Oakley and Jet Pilot stickers on almost every car.
At flea markets back in the 1980s, entrepreneurs were selling actual toy “babies” on a “board.” And one vendor had a minivan completely decorated with stickers, bumper stickers and decals.
I find car stickers useful and informing.A public service announcement on a bumper.
The fish sticker or badge, or any other religious sticker. Baby on board. 25 or 50 year auto club membership sticker.
An instant “pick the other lane” warning.
The “Baby on Board” also tells me not to park near them. Less chance of my car getting dinged by strollers/prams/baby carrages. Or older sibblings throwing doors open. Or distracted parents not caring where their shopping trolley/cart goes.
You’ve hit upon so many good things. My first observation is why don’t people use the corners of the rear glass to stick these things? It saves the paint. But I guess I’m missing the point.
Missing the point also involves my second observation. Font size is important. This link shows font size for road signs based upon how close the intention is for it to be read. Figure 1″ of font for every 10′ of distance. The font size on most of these stickers is 2″ or less; I don’t care for a driver to be sitting 20′ behind me (and that is to their eyes, not space between vehicles). In other words, these stickers are useless, rather like whispering in an airport terminal.
https://wilde-signs.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/11/Sign-Letter-Height-Chart-1-800×411.png
My favorites are the stickers showing mom and dad along with how many offspring of each gender they have, all lined up in a row. Admittedly, it is ripe for satire; I’ve seen lines of tractors, cars, dogs, cats, and ex-spouses in these stickers.
Rereading this I sound like a real grumpy guy, one who is embracing his middle-aged-dom. I’m not grumpy, just observant and thinking analytically. And maybe a skin-flint…there’s no point in spending money on something that will deteriorate my car (more expense) by applying something that nobody will be able to see unless they are frighteningly close.
Maybe I need to go eat breakfast.
Before reading Jeff’s article, I’d assumed that these Student Driver things were magnets, not stickers. I really can’t imagine putting these on a car as a STICKER. As a magnet, I can almost understand.
But that explains another phenomenon about Student Driver stickers – that most of the time it’s an adult driving such car. And when other drivers realize that most of these cars aren’t actually being piloted by inexperienced teens, the whole purpose becomes defeated.
Yeah, you’d think magnets…But no, I guess magnets wouldn’t work so far as pasting them on the window glass, which is the desired location for many of these things.
I entirely agree about how actual text-based warnings on these things are pretty much negated by insufficient font size. Then again, I suppose some sticker-authors know that, hence the popularity of the “If you’re close enough to read this…” language that seems popular on stickers.
So again, this just illustrates that the actual point of the sticker in many cases is to make some kind of snide or unfriendly “statement”…which is not a positive thing in my book.
You directly raise the point that I indirectly make, which is that these things deteriorate ones car. I mean, WHO actually looks at their new car and then says “You know what would make this look better? Some kind of lopsided piece of plastic slapped onto it that says vaguely insulting things about me and/or other people?” Apparently, lots of people do. I just don’t get it.
I used to put radio station stickers on the glass…and when I was a punk teenager….a Cartman “RESPECT MY AUTHROTAH!” sticker on the trunk of my 96 DeVille.
Nowadays, any more than one usually screams “MENTAL ISSUES” to me, and I pass as fast as possible.
Never knew about the “Baby on Board” history…
What gets me are the peely and faded “Student Driver” stickers. If it’s taken you that long to get it right, maybe you’re more the passenger type?
I know. I make the assumption that people just don’t know how to take a sticker off…but actually, the problem is more likely that people just don’t care how awful the ratty stickers look after a while. And this I just don’t understand. Geeze, how about just grabbing a can of paint and a brush and painting some text on your car. To me, that looks just about as good as some of these stickers.
I like the attitude here and appreciate the linked font size chart .
-Nate
I remember when my kids were small, I had a decal “Baby on Board” in the rear window of my 2003 ML 350 hopefully other drivers had enough empathy to drive caution around us. Maybe this worked out for us or not, we went through without any incidents. Now they all gown up and start driving on their own, they don’t want any decals indicating they are new driver, they even remove the mandated red sticker on license plate showing they are minor drivers as required by NJ law.
My first car a 1968 Toyota Corona with 3-speed column shifter had a warning sticker on the rear edge of the trunk lid a friend found at a local demo derby: ‘warning this car may wreck or explode for no apparent reason’. My car was badly dented from being driven on jeep trails, so it really looked the part!
Something similar was a popular (?) bumper sticker on Pintos for a while. The “explode” part at least.
My curmudgeonly hot button along these lines are the “I’d Rather Be …” stickers or license plate frames. If you’d rather be flying, or sailing, or surfing, get off the road.
My other hot button is something I occasionally see in my town. Many neighborhoods, including mine, require a neighborhood-specific parking permit to park on the street for more than 2 or 4 hours. Yes, I pay $30 a year for each car to park on the street in front of my own house. Every year before applying the new 2×2 inch sticker, I use a heat gun to peel off the old one, and carefully use a straightedge and blue tape to align my new sticker. But many people apply their new sticker (usually at a slight random angle) next to their old sticker. Hey, look at me! I’ve had this car and lived here for ten years! Ten stickers arrayed across their rear bumper or tailgate. To be fair, there are people who get the optional rear-view mirror tag because they refuse to put any sticker on their car.
My feeling is that parking permits are appropriate…so long as the old ones are removed when a new one is issued, and that they’re put on straight.
Places that issue mirror-hanger parking permits are the winners in my book.
For years when I worked at the University of MA in the 1980s, they issued parking permits that had a little hook and you hung them inside the driver’s side rolled-up window. That was good except for when you forgot to remove it and rolled down the window on the road…ejecting your expensive parking permit from the vehicle. This ultimately moved them to issue stickers.
Ironically, students really did used to drive school buses. It was permitted in some 20 states, in mostly rural and remote areas, with drivers as young as 15 allowed to drive them in Wyoming.
Yes, regarding the uselessness of those electrical plug protectors.
We were notorious about not baby-proofing our 1865 house. It had 10′ ceilings downstairs, meaning a long (uncarpeted) staircase to the upstairs, very much without a baby gate. And its 360 degree porch was between 3 and 5 feet above the ground and had no railing whatsoever. Our youngest son who was born there used to crawl to the edge of the stairs or porch, take a long look down and back away. Eventually he figured out how to get down the stairs backwards. Kids are not as dumb as we all seem to think nowadays.
+1 to the students driving school buses. The worst thing (maybe the only negative in my mind at the time) about my family leaving North Carolina when I was about 13 was that that meant that I wasn’t going to be able to get a job driving the school bus. I had 16 year old school bus drivers for most of the years that we lived in Raleigh, and I sooooo wanted one of those jobs. It’s somewhat doubtful that my parents would have approved, but I was willing to cross that bridge if I got to it. Which I didn’t.
FWIW, the folks at the National Electric Code consider those blank electric plug fillers to be nearly useless, given that it’s been shown many young kids (including me by age 4) figure out how to remove them. New outlet installations in the US in most locations require “tamper resistant” outlets that wont budge if most objects that aren’t an electric plug are pushed into a tamper-resistant receptacle. These are required not only in homes, but also places where kids may hang out – schools, restaurants, hotels and lobbies, higher-education buildings, and the like. Judging by what’s stocked and sold at Home Depot, few electricians and homeowners are abiding by the NEC’s rules.
https://www.electricallicenserenewal.com/Electrical-Continuing-Education-Courses/NEC-Content.php?sectionID=1495
“FWIW, the folks at the National Electric Code consider those blank electric plug fillers to be nearly useless, given that it’s been shown many young kids (including me by age 4) figure out how to remove them.”
Last time I tampered with one of those…. I was Grounded.
😉
I love this article, and it’s relevant to me for several reasons.
First, your opening paragraphs about your efforts to maintain your cloak of invisibility apply 100% to me as well. I just can’t fathom trying to draw attention to myself anywhere, especially in a car. In fact, just this week my wife and I took over her parents’ F-150, since they passed away this year and we happen to need a third vehicle. It has two bumper stickers on it, and an immediate task for me is to remove them. One is a political-oriented bumper sticker, and even though I agree with the message, I still don’t want to advertise it to other people.
Second – Driver Training. I happen to be writing an article now on the early (pre-WWII) history of drivers’ education. And in researching how people learned to drive in those early days, I’ve wondered how new drivers were treated on the roadways. Certainly no stickers in those days.
Third – I’m in the process of teaching both of my daughters to drive right now. One is at the beginning of the process, and one is close to getting her license. Early on, we’d talked about potentially getting stickers like this, but elected not to. A large part of the reason is because people around where we live are so mean, we wondered if other drivers would be intentionally aggressive to “new drivers.” Both of my kids have already had things done to them like being passed on residential streets because they were driving “too slow” – incredibly rude and unsafe, but that’s just a fact of life, I suppose. So in a certain way, I get the urge to use these stickers (since incidents like that can be deeply unsettling to both new drivers and their parents), but I just doubt they would be of any benefit, and might make things worse.
Finally, I’m with you in having a personal connection to that “Category #2” in the “Child Left in Car” chart – since I also gained access to my folks’ car as a kid, and rolled it into some bushes. I’m actually surprised my parents aren’t still mad at me about that.
I do find some of the more creative Student Driver stickers to be amusing. The one below which added a “Nervous Parent” to the “Student Driver” warning was funny enough for me to photograph. And true too, based on my own experiences.
Those Baby on Board signs followed a similar trajectory, where they became very common, and then after a while the funny knock-offs became even more common than the original.
My thoughts exactly about other drivers being mean(er) if they see a Student Driver sticker. Heck, around here we don’t even use turn signals as doing so might offer other drivers an advantage over you on the road by your giving away your intentions. 😉
I did teach my kids to use turn signals. What they choose to do when they’re on their own is their own decision.
Can’t wait to read the article on Driver Training!
Re: The cloak of invisibility.
My wife often comments that for someone who doesn’t particularly like being approached, my cars don’t do me any favors. With that being said, I’m blunt enough that if someone says something out of the way, I have no problem telling them off. But I don’t have to do it often, most people are civil when they come up to talk to me about my cars. I try not to be annoyed by it; it’s my yearly mantra: They just like the car; it’s not a personal affront.
I generally don’t affix any stickers to my cars, but I put some bumper stickers on my ’93 Escort Wagon when I was in my mid-20s, but I did it semi-ironically. Kind of. One was a sticker for the Corn Palace in Mitchell, South Dakota; one had a picture of a Largemouth Bass and said “Bass Fever”; one was a Tony Stewart NASCAR sticker; and I don’t remember the fourth.
Like you, Eric, I don’t want anyone to know my personal opinions or political affiliations; why invite trouble? And once again, I don’t really like when strangers approach me in public. But I’m working on it, every day.
I’ve often said that a silver minivan is the closest thing to a Cloak of Invisibility as is possible (and I never realized that term was a Harry Potter reference until following Jeff’s link today). Your Challenger is probably the most Anti-Invisibility Mobile I can imagine!
If I were to pick one bumper sticker to have on any car of mine, it would be a Corn Palace sticker. I’m not ashamed to admit that I loved the Corn Palace when I visited there a few years ago. When I was in college, a friend of mine, who was a Geology major, had a bumper sticker that said “Stop Continental Drift.” That would be a close second.
The Corn Palace is (and has been) long on my list of places to visit. I potentially have a work project coming up next year in South Dakota, and I have to admit that as much as anything else I hope to get it so that I can visit the state….and go to the Corn Palace.
I visited the Corn Palace in 2004, and aside from the exterior, which was amazing, all I remember is that the interior was basically a large hall. Maybe it’s changed over the years, but I don’t remember sticking around for very long because there wasn’t that much to do inside.
Aaron, it sounds like the universe needs to increase the number of people you encounter who live by the “If you don’t have anything nice to say, say nothing at all.” motto. I could not imagine coming up to comment to someone about their car unless I was entirely positive.
As for strangers approaching in general, I guess I am ok with that as long as they’re positive. I’m usually surprised on the (very rare for me) occasion when someone chooses to talk to me uninvited, but because my job involves a fair amount of interviewing strangers (at MY insistence, not theirs), I usually make the best of it. I look at it as a learning experience for me.
People almost never say anything bad about the cars, Jeff, which is good. There are plenty of flaws in each of them, some more than others, but most people just comment that *insert car here* is cool or that they had one (except that it was a purple Galaxie or some unrelated old car) or their mom or dad had one, etc.
Aaron, you should get some jumper stickers – Don’t Approach Me for the front, and, perhaps, No Tailgating for the back.
I was never a huge fan of applying stickers to my vehicle.
Until I got my current vehicle, a remarkably average crossover. After the first month of my key fob “not working” (because I was trying to open the wrong car!) I applied some small stickers to the rear quarter windows, just so I would know which of the “they all look the same” crossovers in the parking lot was mine.
OK, truth be told, I do have a small sticker in the rear-most quarter window on one side at the back of my wagon. It’s a vintage Apple Computer sticker (the rainbow apple). Most people probably don’t notice it (it’s only about 3″ in “diameter”), and I just have it because I thought it was cool.
But I expended some effort to make sure it was positioned perfectly straight (not easy as getting your hand into that window on my car is tough). And if it started to peel off on its own, I’d just take it out.
I have a few low-key stickers, and they do help me make sure I have the right vehicle (many black Fits out there.) Before I put them on, I almost got in the wrong one. Door was left unlocked, so I assumed pressing my fob opened it; only reason I didn’t get in was that it looked too clean inside…
My son drives the black FIT in this family, and I believe he’s reported nearly the same thing as you.
I just don’t understand why so many people want strangers to know what they like or dislike, or if they are fertile (over-sexed and careless?), or an inexperienced driver like if today we should assume any driver is experienced. Perhaps I need a sticker that says “Old man driver who hates everyone”. Will that give notice to ‘helicopter parents’ with baby on board signs on their cars, to stay clear of my car? Other auto stickers I might consider: Beware the grumpy old man with nothing to loose. OR: I am having a senior moment and you are warned.
Similar to Jeff, I grew up in a military family, changed schools often, but there was always a abundance of other military brats in the same situation. Even then, I was tormented because I looked different from most all the typical darked haired spawn. Mom was blond, Dad had red hair, I was a mixed breed with pale skin and strawberry blond. OK for a girl, not so much for a boy. So many times I heard the taunts “I would rather be dead then red”. Parents retired to NC when I entered high school and OMG what a culture shock. A large school with a student body split between upper middle class and lower (fill in the blank). The battle lines were drawn, much like “West Side Story”, the Sharks & Jets. Besides looking different I spoke different, only having a slight ‘soft southern’ accent as both parents were originally from the South.
Later in life my difference worked both for me and against me. When I moved to NYC and worked as an Interior Design at a prestigious design firm, my appearance was an advantage. Of course I wore mostly black like most creative types but the hair color did make me stand out (good). But my ‘soft southern accent’ made most Yankees think I was stupid (bad). In the end, I won over the trust of my upscale clients because they thought my accent made me sound sincere. One thing I always hated about my design profession if you did not have the look, attractive enough and / or well dressed enough, you were not going to succeed regardless how talented you were. Thankfully I was attractive enough, knew how to dress, and had the talent to back up the superficial stuff.
One instance, in middle age, my appearance confirmed how people judge you on only superficial first impressions. I was in St. Petersburg Russia, on my own, doing museums and other sites. I had been warned riding the subways the danger was a certain ethnic group who were pick-pockets. Riding the subways during rush, I noticed people standing feet away from me in a crowded carriage. I was wearing my typical black, hair mostly blond and skin slightly tanned from living in the Middle East, wearing some conspicuous jewelry. I was later told people stood away from me because they thought I must be Russian Mafia. In fact, at the time I was just an American Interior Designer from Dallas, a professor in the Middle East teaching Interior Design.
When I was young I tried to fit in and be invisible. Middle age I made my difference work for me. Old age, I don’t care how I am perceived.
Surprisingly, I’ve not seen any Grumpy Old Men stickers. It seems like it ought to be a pretty good market. 🙂
Not a bumper sticker, but the point is made (courtesy of autojunk.nl).
Ah, license plate frames are another rich vein of driver sentiment. But they definitely run into the font-size issue that Jason references in his comment.
Here in Massachusetts, we have a motor vehicle regulation that prohibits license plate frames that obscure any part of the text on the plate…even the dumb parts of the text that say things like “The Spirit of America”. This further limits the amount of space one has to broadcast info via their license plate frame. I once failed state annual inspection on one of my cars because the inspection station determined that the dealer-issued frame (advertising the dealer) was obstructing that silly bit of text. Of course, this was just a play to charge me to remove the two screws that held the frame onto the car….
Bumper stickers are inversely related to the potential for me liking the driver.
I have more than once seen horse trailers with the yellow warning “SHOW HORSES ON BOARD”. I may have had more exposure to horses than most having owned one but I am sure that even the dimmest citizen seeing a horse trailers isn’t expecting it to be carrying orange tabby cat kittens.
I’ve seen the same sort of sticker for dogs! “Show Dogs on Board”.
I dearly love all dogs, and I don’t care for “show dogs” any more than any other dog. I’d guess that most other motorists feel the same way (about the equality of all dogs). Hence, another bragging sticker.
Great collection!
My one bumper sticker decades ago was “Insanity is hereditary, you get it from your kids”. Got a lot of laughs from those behind me. One of my favorites is “My other car is a piece of junk too”.
I relate to a lot of what you are saying. I grew up being regularly pummeled. And have worn pretty much the same thing for the last 40 years, out of habit and comfort. My favorite jacket I still wear, I bought when I got my first engineering job at 20. But growing up in a town of 400 and still living in a rural area, blending in is impossible. I like things that are different, and if I was gonna get picked on regardless, then I might as well be myself. Even in school I liked station wagons and minivans, and have driven them from day one.
But I have always refused to put any stickers on my cars. Despite keeping my cars and other belongings for decades, I have hesitations about the idea of permanence. Same thing with getting tattoos, or painting rooms. Makes little sense I know. Yet I embrace my individuality and drive cars that are basically the only ones remaining around here, and I get a lot of compliments. But I would be found easily if I did a bad deed.
Maybe my biggest issue with stickers is how strongly divided the country is, half the people will like it, half will hate it, and some of those will be angered. There’s already enough road rage out there. Echoes of school. Same reason I won’t put up election signs in my yard.
Another reason is that some stickers are so small that one would need to be dangerously close to read them. And any sticker, if they’re focused on reading it they’re not concentrating on my taillights or their surroundings. Don’t need that.
And finally, paint or other materials fading with age. You remove the sticker, and (unless it was on glass) the outline is clear where it was. Looks terrible and is difficult to correct.
Troy, you and I are of an identical mind so far as our feelings for how signifying works in such a divided country. I too will not put political signs up on my lawn.
Much more that I could probably say here, but I do think that early life experiences provide the basis for being rather judicious about how and why to call attention to yourself. I’m not saying that it’s never appropriate, but if you’re going to do it, there really needs to be a deep reason/motivation and seldom would I find such that would support just slapping some slogan on my vehicle or sticking a sign in my yard.
Let’s be honest: the country isn’t quite nearly so divided as we are led to believe, but nevertheless, it remains true and obviously true that posting support for one side might earn you some ridicule, but posting support for the other might get you physically targeted.
I found this some years ago
Terrific!
It seems kind of desperate in a way that makes me believe that it’s totally authentic.
My son, when he was learning how to drive (he learned stick at the same time he learned how to drive, period) would probably have appreciated something like that. As I recall, his worst fear was rolling backwards into some car that was glued to his tail as he was stopped on a slight (or sometimes worse) incline. I tried to explain that my car – which he was learning on – has a feature where it resists rolling backwards while you’re trying to engage the clutch, but it’s a powerful feeling that one has to overcome in such a situation.
I started decades ago on a car with a standard handbrake and no such mechanism. My current has a brake switch and applies the brake if it thinks it’s on an incline, which I find very irritating and I end up stalling more than I ever did on any older car.
As my car is bright green, weird and 55 years old, I can probably be classed as not really giving a stuff how others regard me. But stickers? No-noney-no!
Apart from one case: if I am ever able to eventually obtain my dream vehicle, which is a VW T2 Westfalia camper, preferably in a nice ’70s orange with orange plaid trim, a couple of decade appropriate stickers such as the “if this van’s a rockin’…” or the 2 pairs of intermingled feet would be almost obligatory…
I concur (for what that’s worth…which is not much) re. the “If This Van’s A-Rockin'” sticker. I’ve always had a soft spot for that particular slogan.
In the same way that I’ve been know to say that that if I had the right vehicle, and perhaps if I were one of those kids from 1971 who complicated my life, I might choose to apply one of these to the vehicle. Ideally, it would be paired with this vintage AAA sticker on the opposite side of the bumper (When my dad worked for AAA in the late 1960s, he came home with a stack of these things to distribute…apparently they felt that urban/transportation planners were good for bumper sticker distribution. My mom promptly threw them away.). Just for the cognitive dissonance effect.
Ahh the plug protectors. Not sure if they even existed when I was little, but open plugs weren’t my interest anyway. I was more interested in what was plugged in. I removed a lamp plug halfway and draped one of those little ball chains across the prongs. Blew me back across the room.
Sometime in the last year or two I saw a “baby” style sticker that said:
“No Baby on Board So Feel Free to Rear End Me.”
Basic, and to the point 🙂
Probably a double entendres there, too.
Good point as well.
Bear Valley Mountain Resort in California used to feature bumper stickers reading “Ski Bear”. As a teenager (a long time ago) I rearranged the letters to read “Ski Bare”, affixed it to the bumper of the family 1966 VW Beetle 1300, primarily used by my mom. She eventually noticed … the sticker was removed pronto.
I pulled out of the lumber yard to the stop light on the corner, to the left is a long grade, I had the leading green to make a right turn but I could see the tractor-trailer coming down the grade wasn’t going to stop so I sat there, when the truck blew through the light it said STUDENT DRIVER on the side.
I refuse to believe that all the cars with “Student Driver” stickers I see contain actual student drivers. Full-size SUVs with middle-aged people inside make up 3/4 of them. Okay, a few older drivers might be learning for the first time, or maybe immigrants, but not as many as I see on the roads. And sometimes the student isn’t the one in the car right then, the sticker is just there. But you used to see kids driving with those stickers. Plus, fewer kids seem interested in learning (my daughter says she is not interested, having seen rush hour traffic too often.)
This is why magnetic signs would make so much more sense.
Yes! I will try to remember that in a few years.
Have never worn a bumper sticker on any of my cars ever. My reason was that nothing adhesive belonged on my bumpers that would mar them. Has more to do with being OCD about my cars rather than exhibiting a personal opinion. Of course in high school where someone did try to intimidate me as a transferred sophomore, with bad results for him, my car did make me standout in my class as I had the newest car of anybody.
Now I do have license plate frames on some cars that say something like 1968 Mustang and 1973 Dodge on the front of both cars. My Focus wears two different frames. The one in back says SDSU Alumni and the one in front says Alumni UC Berkeley.
As for decals on my car windows that was another thing that really didn’t interest me other than once in September 1971 when I did put a decal on one of my windows. That decal is still there today.
My personal experience – and so others may have different experience – is that kids became much more reasonable creatures post elementary school. As I advanced to “junior high”, peers seemed to develop interests (social, academic, athletic in some cases) that gave them something to do beyond simply picking on the kids around them. Elementary school was hell, but school in general got increasingly better after 5th grade.
I’ve always hated stickers on cars as when I was learning to drive in 1988/89 my mother insisted I make a large red ‘L’ and tape it inside the rear window. I was car-crazy and desperate to drive but wasn’t allowed lessons unless the L was attached. Got a bit of abuse (“L for Loser!”) hurled my way as a result and was mortified. Then again I was 15, an age which was and is quite young to be entrusted with several hundred kilograms of Ford Cortina or Sierra, so other motorists probably deserved fair warning that I’d be bunny-hopping at intersections and on hill starts! Nowadays when I see an L on a car, I remember the abuse I got and am patient and respectful. Still hate stickers on cars though!
Well, my mother made me wear a home-knitted school uniform jumper to school, which made me about as cool as a walking “L” plate, so count your mortification blessings.
So, there were no compulsory “L” plates or the like?
Oh trust me justy, being a scrawny kid who hated sport and loved music and cars meant I was a walking L-plate… L-plates are compulsory in NZ now, but weren’t in the ’80s. Our licencing system was revamped in the 90s, with the minimum driving age increasing to 16 and L-plates being made compulsory. Nowadays they’re plastic yellow squares which suction-cup to the inside of the windows, so are much more removable than sticker. Just as big a blind spot though…
In this part of the world, new licence holders have to have done 120 hours supervised, and to have had big yellow “L” plates front and back during that time: and upon passing the test, have to wear green “P” (for “probationary”) plates front and back for one year and red “P”s for two years after that, so there’s no need for this “student driver” malarkey.
Aussie drivers are not exactly known for kindness and courtesy, but I have to say that the “L”s by and large worked. Very little carry-on from others in the hundreds of hours of sweat-soaked hours I’ve spent grinding my teeth (in time with the gearbox) in the front passenger seat.
Baby on Board, however, just became part of the unseen landscape, and as often as not, an apparent licence to drive their babies in such a fashion as to endanger everyone else’s. As for any other stickers, I’ve long thought there’s quite enough folk out there who’ve got a few sheep loose in the top paddock (so to speak) and I don’t need them as my new friends talking to me through a broken side window.
I think a modicum of baby-proofing is sensible, including the socket-blank thingys. Toddlers fingers might be made of pudge, but they also drool and leak and suck from every other part of their bodies, and damp snots kissed deeply into a 240V plug is not an appropriate way to get their hair nicely curled. Anyway, it’s not about them – they take up enough time as it is. It’s about the adults. If one removes enough of the obvious suicide options, the little dears will have become tired out while trying relentlessly to reach the remaining more improbable ones, and thus closer to the blessed peace of their sleep.
Your story of there being an actually officially-sanctioned way of identifying early-stage drivers of course astounds me, from the US, where civil regulations like that seem virtually science fiction. I should note that I think it’s a fantastic idea and goes along with a much more serious approach to motor vehicle operation (one that no doubt involves considerably more training) than would ever fly over/up here.
Somewhat related, when I first started to see the yellow baby on board stickers popping up on car windows back in the 1980s, I made the assumption that this was something that Yuppies were appropriating from Europe where it was assumed (by me at least) that society was much more well-ordered, buttoned down, and civil. Such things went well with the sorts of vehicles that frequently sported the stickers, in the beginning (Saabs, Volvos, BMWs, and the like).
Imagine my surprise when I actually discovered that the things mostly were a U.S. invention, by someone struggling with Boston traffic to-boot.
Wow, so much to unpack here.
+1 on the uselessness of outlet protectors, I learned about electricity at age 3 by pulling my night light halfway out and dropping a straight pin across the prongs. The pin vaporized, and I was sufficiently scared that I later became a mechanical engineer.
I always assumed that those were magnets, not stickers. In the UK you have to put a magnet on your car with a big L on it for new drivers.
I was unable to find an invisibility cloak that fit during my middle school years, as I was over 6 feet tall and 115 pounds.
Doug, your safety pin story mirrors Troy’s about the key chain chain, and mine which had to do with a paper clip, a screw driver, and a butter knife (I’m a slow and methodical learner…I required 3 separate experiments). And yes, that’s exactly what I meant in the text about the possible relationship between “outlet protectors” and STEM learning.
When I was a kid, my grandma was still using an old GE electric fan from the early 30s. It had a guard that would keep a 2×4 out of the blades, but nothing any smaller. I asked her how kids didn’t get hurt by it in the old days. Her reply was that kids used to mind. I think my lesson in electricity was from a shock I got from plugging that thing in.
Now what kid hasn’t ever stuck a knife into a toaster to get out stuck toast. That was my introduction to electricity when five. My hand flew out of there as well as the knife. Have always been careful since until 2002. When restoring Navigation Plot on the USS Hornet, and being the thorough person I am, I went to clean behind a piece of equipment that was put in for Apollo 11. The darn thing was powered! Why? Who knew? No one until I got the surprise of my life. That was no mild shock.
Loved this, which I read over a breakfast of not fried rice.
I figured that “Baby on Board” was simply an indicator of a really expensive car to hit. Something solely occupied by an old man is so much cheaper. Also, I wonder if we have to expect that the kind of person who counts the number of curb strikes in a week with more than 2 hands is not someone capable of enough precision to get a sticker straight.
I did break down and put a magnetic sign touting my childrens’ high school on my Town & Country’s tailgate. That turned out to be a bad idea because when I went to remove it, the thing came off only in teeny, sticky pieces after much effort.
I think you’re on to something re. the correlation between curb strikes and an inability to align the sticker with the horizon. 🙂
Many tailgates and trunk lids (Jeep Cherokee XJ for example 1983-1997, current Toyota Sienna, lots of others) are not metal (fiberglass/Composite in those cases) so magnetic signage doesn’t work. A lot of metal ones are aluminum (Tesla Model Y, F-150, Range Rover, many others) so again, magnetic won’t do. I did pick up a magnetic student driver sign at a junkyard and it wouldn’t stick to our Outback tailgate either. So I stuck it on the side door for the one day I took our driver-to-be to ice driving just like the example you showed, the sign was clearly visible to the following drivers for most of the day while we were sideways or spinning like a top!
I find them useful, I usually keep well back/away from cars sporting such signage and generally am a little more patient when stopped behind. Usually they get moving just fine after coming to a full stop but rarely exceed the speed limit. The cars more often NOT moving are the licensed drivers busy texting at a light and not seeing the green…
Grumpy Old Men do have a sticker btw, I believe it’s abbreviated NRA around here…
The check rear seat warning in my experience usually only comes on if the rear door was opened before the car was started OR if there is some weight in the rear seat. At least on a well-engineered car it does. It’s a good idea, doesn’t hurt anything and if it stops one parent from ruining their family’s lives, it’s worth it.
Nobody anal enough to measure for absolute straightness of a bumper sticker versus the flatness of the earth would ever affix one anyway…
I love the idea of taking a student driver ice driving. Mine (the one that made it all the way through training to actual licensure) did his learning during ice-less seasons, so I never got the chance. But now he’s doing his driving in upstate NY, so he’s doing that learning on his own. Judging by how the car looks when I see it every few months, so far so good.
I guess it hadn’t occurred to me that there would be that many cars where tailgates and trunk lids are not steel. I’m particularly surprised by the Outback. It seems like a non-steel component like a hatch would be more expensive than something made of steel.
Good point about the grumpy old man sticker. I’d prefer something about yelling at clouds, but your comment is probably more reflective of reality.
When I was in college I took my mid-teens brother to a big snowy parking lot and demonstrated braking and steering in slick conditions (both good and bad examples.) And a couple of days ago showed my 4th-grader what the ice patch at our corner would do. I’m sure I’ll get more chances this winter.
I would have liked a sticker that said “it’s a stick” when I was learning, stopping at the top of a hill, so people wouldn’t get close behind me. The threat of collision was certainly a big motivator for me to get it right immediately…
As a rule I don’t like giving away any information about myself with any external personalization on the car. The sole exception is the Hamilton County Park sticker on the windsshield. The stickers are triangular, and people with put a row of them up the side of the glass or arrange them in circles. It’s a badge of honor, of sorts, to announce to other cheap Cincinnatians that you drive an older car and pay the $10 a year to go to county parks. When my son started driving my old 2006 Kia Sportage, which I still have as a fishing car, he peeled the row of stickers off, and I could have choked him.
I like a good gag so once many years ago I took a “Student Driver” sticker and cut two letters out of the middle, so that it read “Stunt Driver”. I thought it was pretty clever, but apparently, only I found it funny. Most people didn’t notice anything different about the sticker and would ask me about driving lessons, etc. I peeled the sticker off to avoid these dumb questions.
Then again, my sense of humor is sometimes too subtle. For example, I always wanted a custom license plate that read 145 EAB or EAB 145. Only a few fellow musicians might get that one (a common formula for blues or rock ‘n’ roll).
Just one more!