Baby On Board Stickers Are Dumb

You’ll be driving along minding your own business and the car in front of you will have this sticker which states 3 awful words, “Baby On Board”.

Sometimes they are the classic yellow sign in a diamond shape. You’ll also see other shapes and colours. Sometimes people even get real creative and put some clever stuff like “future occupation of one of the parent’s on board”. 

Overall you are forced to stare at them all over and my question is why?

Literally no one but you cares that your child is in your car and yet now this knowledge is in my brain. 

Before y’all fret, I really don’t care about extra safety for kids, road safety is road safety regardless of the age of the passenger.

Where did this baby on board phenomenon even come from?

Allegedly it has to do with child safety but it could also be capitalism

Apparently there’s an urban myth origin story where we put the sign up to advise emergency vehicles that there is a baby on board. 

Basically the unproved version is a kid died because EMS was unaware that there was a baby on board. 

What really happened is a lady named Patricia Bradley saw a version of the sign in Germany. She and her sister then started a company where they wanted to sell “Baby on Board” signs. The goal was precautionary in nature. 

They met Michael Lerner, who recently had a kid and noticed drivers were aggressive. He used some good business strategy and in 1985 these Baby On Board signs were a popular fad. One that was deaded by 1986. 

While people don’t sincerely use them en masse, via parody and pop culture they stayed alive.

Except, why do all these people have non ironic ones on their cars?

Allegedly people put them on to tell you they will be worse drivers

The rest of this article is my speculation mixed with Reddit.

Basically a bunch of parents were like, “I put it on so you know I’ll do corners slow and not be as reckless”. The main idea is to let you know you may need to pay more attention because they have a baby in their vehicle. Arguably it’s another way parents obnoxiously humble brag they procreated.

I think we’re supposed to treat these baby branded cars special. 

I’m sure there is someone reading this like, “but Holden, think of the kids…”. To which I say, I’m thinking of all drivers on the road. Not just parents, looking for special treatment because their kids are on the road. 

I also think it’s trash that parents with young kids get to board planes first. 

No one told you to breed and travel. 

Anyway the sign feels more attention grabbing than anything else.

A lot of parents just need you to know they are parents

There are useful signs, like the “student driver” sign, that help inform us that the person is a trash driver because they are in training. 

The “Baby on Board” sign just seems to let you know there’s a trash driver in front of you, only their excuse is that they had sex without a condom. New parents are compelled to share that they are new parents, the way I want you to listen to a new song.

All that is fine. But sometimes there is clearly no baby on board. I leave my Uber sign up all the time, because it’s a pain in the ass to take down and put up again. But if you are driving without a baby, you are just lying to all of us at that moment. 

No one cares if you have a baby, and you’re asking for special treatment without the kid in the car. 

Anyway, we should all just drive like there are humans on board and call it a day.

Live Long and Prosper Everyone