# Bumper Stickers in Britain/Ireland **URL:** \ **Category:** Factual Questions\ **Created:** [August 7, 2013, 11:53pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/bumper-stickers-in-britain-ireland/665649 "2013-08-07T23:53:36Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 4
**Author:** ![jabiru](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/bbce88/32.png) [@jabiru](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/jabiru)\ **Post date:** [August 9, 2013, 12:49am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/bumper-stickers-in-britain-ireland/665649/61 "2013-08-09T00:49:10Z")
> [@SanVito](#): > > My Dad was always mistaken for being Australian when he was in the US. He’s from Ipswich. > > Happens to folks the world over. Ispwich, Queensland? 🙂 ---
**Author:** ![Princhester](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/3e96dc/32.png) [@Princhester](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Princhester)\ **Post date:** [August 9, 2013, 3:54am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/bumper-stickers-in-britain-ireland/665649/62 "2013-08-09T03:54:43Z")
> [@jabiru](#): > > Ispwich, Queensland? 🙂 Actually I think he probably meant Ipswich, MA. ---
**Author:** ![stui\_magpie](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/stui_magpie/32/11010_2.png) [@stui\_magpie](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/stui_magpie)\ **Post date:** [August 9, 2013, 5:41am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/bumper-stickers-in-britain-ireland/665649/63 "2013-08-09T05:41:23Z")
> [@Imasquare](#): > > Lots of bumper stickers in Australia. usually on the older cars though, the newer ones tend to go for the rear window with the footy club sticker or those stupid frigging “My Family” things. I still like seeing some of the humerous ones, plenty of them around. “Mother in law in boot” on a car or “Don’t laugh, your daughters in here” on a van these kind are now more common than the old rectangular slogan ones. > **[Domain Parked With VentraIP Australia](http://www.stickerwizard.com.au/index.html)** ---
**Author:** ![Nava](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/da6949/32.png) [@Nava](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Nava)\ **Post date:** [August 9, 2013, 6:44am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/bumper-stickers-in-britain-ireland/665649/64 "2013-08-09T06:44:39Z")
> [@aruvqan](#): > > Oh I don’t know, my stick figure family is an [Avatar](http://wiki.eveonline.com/en/wiki/Avatar) and a [Drake](http://games.chruker.dk/eve_online/item.php?type_id=24698) with a Hello Kitty face on the Jetta, and a [Rorqual](http://wiki.eveuniversity.org/Rorqual) and a [Mackinaw](http://wiki.eveonline.com/en/wiki/Mackinaw) with a Hello Kitty head on the momvan. A friend from EVE says I will probably find my momvan being followed by someone with the stick figure of a [Raven](http://wiki.eveonline.com/en/wiki/Raven) on it 😛 \ Yes, but you’re not going to have a baby who will go through years of pics before his arrival where Mommy proudly displays that necklace spelling out “we have one boy and don’t want more”. And even if such a risk existed, it takes special knowledge to decipher that as a “sticker figure family”. If a stranger walked up to a woman in the mall and asked “hi, how many kids do you have? what gender? what’s their birth order?” out of the blue she’d get mad, yet hundreds of women spell it out on their necks. ---
**Author:** ![SanVito](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/sanvito/32/2805_2.png) [@SanVito](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/SanVito)\ **Post date:** [August 9, 2013, 7:26am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/bumper-stickers-in-britain-ireland/665649/65 "2013-08-09T07:26:36Z")
> [@Princhester](#): > > Actually I think he probably meant Ipswich, MA. ‘She’ meant Ipswich, Suffolk. Those East Anglians clearly had itchy feet back in the day. Well, it was either emigration or sheep farming. ---
**Author:** ![MichaelEmouse](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/michaelemouse/32/101_2.png) [@MichaelEmouse](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MichaelEmouse)\ **Post date:** [August 9, 2013, 7:43am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/bumper-stickers-in-britain-ireland/665649/66 "2013-08-09T07:43:49Z")
A tangential question which may help answer the OP: Have there been studies which compare the prevalence of tattoos in the US, UK, Canada etc? I would think that there would be some strong correlation between tattoos and car stickers, perhaps not at the individual level but at the cultural level. ---
**Author:** ![Princhester](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/3e96dc/32.png) [@Princhester](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Princhester)\ **Post date:** [August 9, 2013, 8:32am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/bumper-stickers-in-britain-ireland/665649/67 "2013-08-09T08:32:53Z")
> [@SanVito](#): > > ‘She’ meant Ipswich, Suffolk. Ya think? 😉 ---
**Author:** ![Capt.Ridley\_s\_Shooting\_Party](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/cc9497/32.png) [@Capt.Ridley\_s\_Shooting\_Party](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Capt.Ridley_s_Shooting_Party)\ **Post date:** [August 9, 2013, 9:29am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/bumper-stickers-in-britain-ireland/665649/68 "2013-08-09T09:29:49Z")
> [@gracer](#): > > I think the National Trust one isn’t just showing off or advertising, it’s because you can… I dunno… drive up to National Trust properties and get free parking or something? Yeah, you get free parking in their car parks if your membership sticker is displayed on your car. They own a lot of the coastline around the UK (along with their sister organisations in Scotland and elsewhere), so their car parking is handy if you want to go for a walk. > [@Staggerlee](#): > > Or it may be because most Brits find bumper stickers irretrievably vulgar. Heh, yeah. There’s a lot of pussyfooting around here. Bumper stickers are tacky, are almost always banal (you’re a Christian? No WAY!!!) and make a mess of your car. Why would anybody want one? As for individuality, earlier this year I was in the US. Cars there, from what I noticed, are extremely dark in colour compared to the UK. Driving around New York, there were an awful lot more black, brown and dark grey cars than you’d find in the UK. Even cars that had a colour tended to be more muted, i.e. you’d get a red car but it would be almost black the colour was that muted. You didn’t really get the vibrant red, greens, yellows and blues that you see in the UK in the same numbers. Perhaps my (wrong) impression, but I remember remarking to my wife at the time that we seemed to be driving on a road where everybody had the same colour of car. ---
**Author:** ![Ximenean](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/x/aca169/32.png) [@Ximenean](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ximenean)\ **Post date:** [August 9, 2013, 10:14am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/bumper-stickers-in-britain-ireland/665649/69 "2013-08-09T10:14:29Z")
> [@Capt.Ridley\_s\_Shooting\_Party](#): > > Bumper stickers are tacky Well they have to be, otherwise they’d fall off. The National Trust thing reminds me of an amusing thread over on Pistonheads. A guy had a yen to have the uncoolest car possible, a “pensioner’s car” in other words. Suggestions included a tartan rug on the back seat, a packet of Werther’s Originals in the glove box and, of course, a National Trust sticker. ---
**Author:** ![Celyn](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/9dc877/32.png) [@Celyn](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Celyn)\ **Post date:** [August 9, 2013, 10:28am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/bumper-stickers-in-britain-ireland/665649/70 "2013-08-09T10:28:53Z")
… and perhaps a flask of Bovril. ---
**Author:** ![Colophon](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/f05b48/32.png) [@Colophon](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Colophon)\ **Post date:** [August 9, 2013, 10:46am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/bumper-stickers-in-britain-ireland/665649/71 "2013-08-09T10:46:51Z")
> [@Ximenean](#): > > Well they have to be, otherwise they’d fall off. > > The National Trust thing reminds me of an amusing thread over on Pistonheads. A guy had a yen to have the uncoolest car possible, a “pensioner’s car” in other words. Suggestions included a tartan rug on the back seat, a packet of Werther’s Originals in the glove box and, of course, a National Trust sticker. Werther’s Originals are rather arriviste. What you want is a tin of [travel sweets](http://www.sweetreet.com/boiled-crunchy-sweets/smith-kendon-original-travel-sweets-mixed-fruit-flavour/?gclid=CMijk7iX8LgCFeGWtAodCk8A9A). My gran had one of those exact tins in her car when I was a kid, which I think had been transferred from the car she had before I was even born (and quite possibly from _her_ grandmother’s horse and carriage. ---
**Author:** ![Ximenean](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/x/aca169/32.png) [@Ximenean](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ximenean)\ **Post date:** [August 9, 2013, 10:52am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/bumper-stickers-in-britain-ireland/665649/72 "2013-08-09T10:52:13Z")
Ah yes. I always wondered about “travel” sweets - is it a special formulation, because regular sweets disintegrate at speeds in excess of 30mph or something? Is it safe to eat travel sweets while stationary? ---
**Author:** ![Ken001](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/43a26b/32.png) [@Ken001](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ken001)\ **Post date:** [August 9, 2013, 11:35am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/bumper-stickers-in-britain-ireland/665649/73 "2013-08-09T11:35:18Z")
Ok (sigh). Bumper stickers were popular in New Zealand in the 1970s and 1980s but then died out as tastes changed. Today they are non-existent although the stick figures do feature on rear windscreens. In fact there is a set (a gift) on a table not ten feet from this chair which I’m trying to ignore. 😃 I previously chaired a significant local charity and spent 18 months trying to persuade people to adopt bumper stickers for placement in rear windscreens. My argument was that this is vacant advertising space and very effective for a charity to gain exposure. Nope. Nadda. The general reaction was “I’m not going to spoil my nice car with stickers. Ugh! And we can’t expect other people to do that either.” I still think they were wrong but live and learn. ---
**Author:** ![Ken001](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/43a26b/32.png) [@Ken001](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ken001)\ **Post date:** [August 9, 2013, 11:42am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/bumper-stickers-in-britain-ireland/665649/74 "2013-08-09T11:42:30Z")
While we are on the subject, there is a contentious murder case in New Zealand where a young man, David Bain was convicted of murdering his father, mother, two sisters, and his brother. Here is his stick figure family. [http://www.whaleoil.co.nz/wp-content/uploads/2013/01/dlkflkgfjsfgh.jpeg](http://www.whaleoil.co.nz/wp-content/uploads/2013/01/dlkflkgfjsfgh.jpeg) ---
**Author:** ![APB](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/8e8cbc/32.png) [@APB](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/APB)\ **Post date:** [August 9, 2013, 1:05pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/bumper-stickers-in-britain-ireland/665649/75 "2013-08-09T13:05:10Z")
[Topical news story about one British bumper sticker](http://www.huffingtonpost.co.uk/2013/08/08/rev-alice-goodman-defends-jesus-bumper-sticker_n_3725685.html). But then, Alice Goodman (yes, that Alice Goodman) is American. Doesn’t she know they’re irredeemably vulgar? Which was presumably why the Archbishop of Canterbury was too polite to say anything. ---
**Author:** ![clairobscur](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/839c29/32.png) [@clairobscur](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/clairobscur)\ **Post date:** [August 9, 2013, 1:54pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/bumper-stickers-in-britain-ireland/665649/76 "2013-08-09T13:54:37Z")
> [@MichaelEmouse](#): > > A tangential question which may help answer the OP: Have there been studies which compare the prevalence of tattoos in the US, UK, Canada etc? I would think that there would be some strong correlation between tattoos and car stickers, perhaps not at the individual level but at the cultural level. No study to back me up, but I find this hypothesis very dubious. There are no bumper stickers over here, but tattoos aren’t uncommon. In fact, as already mentioned, bumper stickers seem to be an American thing, while tattoos are found everywhere in western countries. ---
**Author:** ![Acsenray](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/acsenray/32/4519_2.png) [@Acsenray](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Acsenray)\ **Post date:** [August 9, 2013, 2:15pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/bumper-stickers-in-britain-ireland/665649/77 "2013-08-09T14:15:54Z")
> [@Ken001](#): > > While we are on the subject, there is a contentious murder case in New Zealand where a young man, David Bain was convicted of murdering his father, mother, two sisters, and his brother. > > Here is his stick figure family. > > [http://www.whaleoil.co.nz/wp-content/uploads/2013/01/dlkflkgfjsfgh.jpeg](http://www.whaleoil.co.nz/wp-content/uploads/2013/01/dlkflkgfjsfgh.jpeg) Is this for real? ---
**Author:** ![aruvqan](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/aruvqan/32/2891_2.png) [@aruvqan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/aruvqan)\ **Post date:** [August 9, 2013, 4:48pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/bumper-stickers-in-britain-ireland/665649/78 "2013-08-09T16:48:50Z")
> [@Nava](#): > > Yes, but you’re not going to have a baby who will go through years of pics before his arrival where Mommy proudly displays that necklace spelling out “we have one boy and don’t want more”. And even if such a risk existed, it takes special knowledge to decipher that as a “sticker figure family”. > > If a stranger walked up to a woman in the mall and asked “hi, how many kids do you have? what gender? what’s their birth order?” out of the blue she’d get mad, yet hundreds of women spell it out on their necks. Good Ghu, being 52 [and having had a tubal ligation in my early 20s and a hysterectomy 3 years ago] I hope I _won’t_ be popping out a kid at any point … and it indicates we have a cat, not a kid. And where did the whole necklace thing come from anyways? I was discussing car window stickers … > [@Colophon](#): > > Werther’s Originals are rather arriviste. What you want is a tin of [travel sweets](http://www.sweetreet.com/boiled-crunchy-sweets/smith-kendon-original-travel-sweets-mixed-fruit-flavour/?gclid=CMijk7iX8LgCFeGWtAodCk8A9A). My gran had one of those exact tins in her car when I was a kid, which I think had been transferred from the car she had before I was even born (and quite possibly from _her_ grandmother’s horse and carriage. Oh sweet jumping Jebus, I love those - they beat the hell out of glucose tablets when I need to boost my blood glucose level! [though I also like sugar dipped [violet](http://www.candywarehouse.com/assets/item/large/les-anis-de-flavigny-violet-1304061.jpg) flavored suckets as well, and [musk lifesavers](http://learnsomethingnewtoday.us/wp-content/uploads/2008/11/musk-lifesavers.jpg), my goddaughters wont hijack those out of my bag on a bet :p] ---
**Author:** ![Nava](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/da6949/32.png) [@Nava](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Nava)\ **Post date:** [August 9, 2013, 5:15pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/bumper-stickers-in-britain-ireland/665649/79 "2013-08-09T17:15:07Z")
> [@Ximenean](#): > > Ah yes. I always wondered about “travel” sweets - is it a special formulation, because regular sweets disintegrate at speeds in excess of 30mph or something? Is it safe to eat travel sweets while stationary? It’s the Magic Can, which makes them easy to carry around and also easy to find in a larger container while traveling. Many kinds of candy which are sold in cans like those will do a number if you leave them out of the tin in a hot day, in a handbag or pocket. **aru** , my previous post you responded to mentioned jewelry. ---
**Author:** ![Ken001](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/43a26b/32.png) [@Ken001](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ken001)\ **Post date:** [August 9, 2013, 10:35pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/bumper-stickers-in-britain-ireland/665649/80 "2013-08-09T22:35:29Z")
> [@Acsenray](#): > > Is this for real? Not in the sense that you can buy that set of stickers, but the regular ones can be adapted by those with a macabre sense of humour. Such as university students in Dunedin. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/bumper-stickers-in-britain-ireland/665649.md?page=3) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/bumper-stickers-in-britain-ireland/665649.md?page=5)