Baby on bored

So here I am, still learning to drive, and as my skills increasing are apace, unfortunately so is my discontent with other road users. Now, let it not be said that I am a perfect driver. Heck, I've not yet even passed MY driving test & here I am criticising my fellow drivers who have got what I haven't. A qualification. And I recognise that I, being a learner driver, am a total pest to a number of others on the road, primarily by obeying the speed limit & inevitably gathering a convoy behind me like my very own built up area. For which, fellow drivers,  I truly apologise.  However, like most other drivers, I also have growing list of gripes including (but not limited to) haphazard use of indicators, driving up my chuff, and yummy mummies paying more attention to sproglets screaming out the sunroof than the rules of the road. So far, so many gripes, thus so much like many other qualified road users it seems. However there is one particular bugbear that really gets my vehicular goat like no other..... that of the 'Baby On Board' sign.

Grrrrrrr!

I do accept that such a sign might be useful to the Emergency Services when meeting a road traffic accident situation. Yeah. That makes sense, or at least it would if people only used the sign when baby was actually on board, rather than when baby is happily ensconced in a milk burping haze in its crib at home & Daddy is doing his best Lewis Hamilton impression up the M6. However according to a 2012 confused.com survey, 46% of sign owners display it irrespective of whether baby was actually on board or not, meaning potential time wasted at the scene of a road traffic accident while PC Plod searches for an invisible baby. Furthermore, on the subject of safety, more often than not these stickers on the rear windscreen serve only to clutter up ones, ahem, back end, thus obscuring a driver’s vision & potentially causing an accident themselves.

So let's put that ‘safety’ claim to one side, shall we? Because we all know what is actually at play here – it’s Mummy and Daddy pedestalling their baby, demanding all other drivers to take especial care as their 'precious cargo' is on board *yawns*. As a side point, these were the actual words used by the inventor of the Baby On Board sign according that fount of all, ummm knowledge (?) USA Today, when describing the reasons behind his invention. Precious Cargo *gaks*. And it is this which makes me mad, the quite frankly absurd assumption that if it were not for this automotive accessory displayed in ma & pa's car, I'd be driving hell for leather up their sign obscured back end. Ridiculous! And to say nothing (or at least only a little) of the fact that some of the worst driving I've seen of late has been displayed by huge cars outside school gates, packed with baby seats & a blatant disregard for any other road user. So listen up mummies and daddies of the world, believe it or not, I'm gonna do my best to drive safe for EVERYONE, not just because you managed that previously unheard of feat of popping out a sprog. And unfortunately for Halfords, that typographic warning on your road munching, lane weaving, family sized saloon ain't gonna make me drive any better.

Coincidentally the Baby On Board sign celebrated it's 30th birthday last month, so can I now send it hearty congratulations, happy birthday you shouty, yellow rascal. But while I am wishing happy birthday, can I suggest we all do what that 30 year old sign has done all on its own? Very simply, grow up. That and start treating everyone (regardless of their breeding status) with a bit of respect on the roads, mummies, daddies & precious cargo included.

So it is…. Nice punning America