Question of the Day: What Do You Make of Bumper Stickers?
There's a fascinating new study out of Colorado that suggests bumper stickers are actually road rage warning labels. Here's the jist: "Equating bumper stickers with a warning label, the research of social psychologist William Szlemko indicates that people who apply the rearward-facing declarations to their cars are much more likely to use their cars to show rage on the road than people without such stickers, reports the Washington Post. The message of the bumper stickers themselves has no relevance to the result; peaceful messages of unity are just as much a warning sign as are offensive or hostile statements." I've never thought too highly of announcing anything to the world from the back of my car. Full disclosure: I've had one bumper sticker in my life– my old band. However, when I was in junior high a friend and I ordered a bunch of screw stickers from the back of National Lampoon (squares with a picture of a screw) and ran all over town modifying Chevy Suburbans to read "I [screw] My Children" and "I [screw] My Horse." Hey, I was 12. You?
Cleanup driver for Team Black Metal V8olvo.
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I enjoy seeing a Nixon-Lodge sticker every now and then. Or a Kennedy-Johnson.
At the Macungie (Pa.) AACA show, a very nice 1976 Pontiac Bonneville Safari station wagon (complete with 1970s woodgrain) sporting a Ford-Dole sticker has been on the showfield for a couple of years. My favorite bumper stickers: A "Hungry? Eat Your Import" sticker on the back bumper of...a Fiat. A "Clean Air - Wouldn't It be a Nice Idea?" sticker on the back of an Isuzu Stylus that left a trail of oily, blue smoke several yards behind the car.
When I moved to Manhattan years ago, I sold my '95 Miata and got a Ford Escort for $500 as I just didn't need a car for the most part. I put every stupid sticker ever given to me form a bar, club or a queue on the back of that thing, along with throwing every flyer, paper and handout ever given to me in the back seat and floor. I never locked the doors, it was never stolen and never broken into. :)
BlueBrat, People were probably afraid of it!