At first, it seems innocuous: baby on board! Please be a little more careful driving near this vehicle.
But what does this imply? Shouldn’t we be driving carefully enough to preserve life and health, regardless of who is in the next car over? Does the absence of a “baby on board” sticker imply “don’t worry about us as much! Feel free to be more aggressive” ? I’d hope not. Besides, babies aren’t the only people who are more fragile than an assumed strong, healthy adult. Cars everywhere have plenty of elderly people and people with various conditions who would be in more serious danger in a car crash. I’d go so far as to say everyone on the road is somewhere on a spectrum between “peak human physical and mental condition” and “extraordinarily fragile”, and we cannot know or judge where each person is at. We should be driving carefully out of an abundance of caution no matter what.
Maybe the idea is based on assumptions about the longer potential remaining lifespan of a baby, compared to an adult? A kind of utilitarian argument about reducing harm by preserving more years of life? If that sounds a bit familiar, it is part of the concept of Quality-Adjusted Life Years (QALYs), which is an integral concept in Effective Altruism, among other uses. I won’t go into the details of Effective Altruism, but let’s just say it’s a pretty terrible system for deciding where to spend resources that glorifies the ability of rich people to do philanthropy and provides support for some racist and eugenicist outcomes. In any event, it certainly doesn’t make sense for every driver on the road to be making some kind of QALY analysis of their neighbors on the road at every point of the journey.
I believe that all life is precious. I make an effort to drive that way, too.
P.S. the best interventions to make driving safer for everyone are systemic and infrastructural: crash-compatible vehicles, available alternatives to driving, slower speeds, modal filters, etc. I don’t blame baby on board sticker havers for the absence of these things.
Does the absence of a “baby on board” sticker imply “don’t worry about us as much! Feel free to be more aggressive” ?
Well yeah. If you’re at fault in an accident and you killed a baby, the jury is not gonna be happy with you. If you killed a non-baby maybe they’ll let it slide depending on circumstances.
I always thought it was more to warn others you drive cautiously, so they don’t get mad at you. Like student driver stickers
Combine the two, let the baby take the wheel
Someone has this in my neighborhood
An adult can survive a worse crash than a baby can
Skill issue
But I like a little struggle, you’re taking all the fun out of it!
Nah, they are there as a warning. A warning that the person driving the car is sleep deprived and distracted and you need to watch out for poor driving because of it.
Yeah I’m not sure if it’s confirmation bias for me, but I always see cars with this sign doing the dumbest shit on the road. I’ve always chalked it up to self important people who think being a parent means they’re God’s gift to humanity, but I like your optimistic view on it better.
Lol that’s a better usage! Time to sell a “sleep deprived & over caffeinated on board” sticker
It’s for firefighters and EMS to let them know there’s a baby in the car if there is an emergency
Urban legend
I always thought it was to let emergency responders know they’re there. I had stickers on my bedroom window as a kid for the same reason.
Apparently not. Link is a source from Wikipedia, where Wiki says “… However, this is not the intended purpose as stated by the company Safety 1st, which marketed the product at the time of its peak popularity.”
More proof the fastest way to a correct answer is to be wrong on the internet
That’s an urban legend:
Unlike what is implied in the gruesome folklore that has come to be associated with these advisories, their purpose was not to alert rescue workers to the presence of babies at accident scenes; they were instead supplications to other drivers to exercise additional care, reminders that they shared the road with vehicles carrying children.
Then I guess I had that fancy foil sticker on my window to let kidnappers know I was there.
Didn’t work
Reminded me of “The Guard” :
“Gerry Boyle: I don’t want to see it. Babies all look the same. The only time a baby doesn’t look like every other baby is when it’s a really ugly baby. So unless you’re about to show me a photo of a really ugly baby then I don’t want to see it.”
I think the Simpsons summarized this best
Marge holding up a new baby on board sticker
Look what I got. Now people will stop intentionally ramming our car.
And they always drive like dickheads.
