Unclutterer

1. Posted by philip - 06/26/2008

   I assume this counts window stickers as well as bumper stickers? I would never use a bumper sticker but have had as many as 4 window stickers on at once. Guess I am an aggressive driver.

2. Posted by Emma - 06/26/2008

   Does that mean the more stickers you have the more likely you are to be attacked or to attack?

3. Posted by Amy - 06/26/2008

   Ha, ha, hope you’re kidding there about keeping bumper stickers off your car to avoid road rage. Remember, correlation is not causation.

   As with many correlations, I imagine it must be some third variable that’s responsible, maybe a personality trait like “expressiveness” that leads to both road rage and a sticker-covered car. It’s interesting to ponder.

4. Posted by Charles Martin - 06/26/2008

   However, you could use this to your advantage (if you choose to ignore the “get rid of clutter” mantra). By placing more stickers on your car, other drivers on the road may give you wider berth in order to avoid a confrontation. I have a few stickers, but would not expand my collection for this purpose. Just pointing out that this could be a side effect of this study and the general public being aware of the results of the study.

5. Posted by Emma - 06/26/2008

   Sorry just read the article. It’s people who have the stickers and other forms of personalisation who are more aggresive.

6. Posted by Mikey - 06/26/2008

   This just sounds silly to me.

   “There’s three kinds of lies in the world: lies, damn lies, and statistics.” In my grad school stats class, we used statistics to prove that wearing a bra causes breast cancer. And that wearing neckties causes baldness. Don’t believe everything you read, even if it’s in Nature. Or summarized in Autoweek…

7. Posted by Shalin - 06/26/2008

   …I like to find or even fabricate something where I can just slip in one bumper sticker and replace it whenever I wanted – basically to avoid the adhesive vs. paint issue. This would give me the option of saying something or nothing as I wish as well as keeping it to just one thing.

   Best,
   Shalin

8. Posted by onesnap - 06/26/2008

   My bumper sticker (or as some of my colleagues say: “bumpah stickah”) in high school said “mean people suck” I should really get that sticker again.

   My current stickers are a WWW to make fun of all of the ones that have certain places (OOB, BOS, GB…to name a few) and a friend’s band sticker from 6 years ago (the band is no more).

9. Posted by onesnap - 06/26/2008

   Oh, and I almost forgot–during undergrad my husband had a sticker that said “lost your cat? try checking under your tires!” it was poking fun at his mom at the time who had 8 cats. Someone took a black marker and wrote all over it that he was an animal hater. So rage is common perhaps while your car is still parked!

10. Posted by Rae - 06/26/2008

    I have one bumper-sticker of sorts. It’s the fish symbol of Christ, and it’s outlined in these big plastic diamond-esque gems. My friends lovingly call it my “Jesus bling.”

11. Posted by Rae - 06/26/2008

    Also, @ onesnap – I laughed out loud at your post, and I love cats! Your poor hubby, hehehe!

12. Posted by Amy - 06/26/2008

    Mikey,

    You’re mistaking correlation and causation. They should have taught you that in undergraduate statistics, let alone grad stats. Correlation just means things co-occur, without implying either causes the other. This is a perfect case of that. So are the two examples you listed. In both those cases, the two things co-occur because of a third variable they have in common (gender). Finding a correlation is often useful because it can open up possibilities for those third variables, which is where the causation actually is.

    Statistics aren’t necessarily lies. Don’t blame the statistics, blame the interpretation.

13. Posted by Yarrrr! - 06/26/2008

    I used to have only one bumper sticker, for Amnesty International. Now I have a silver emblem of His Noodliness, the Flying Spaghetti Monster. Equal time for Pastafarians, I say.

14. Posted by Nimic - 06/26/2008

    I’ve often suspected this. I’ve had a couple of office mates in the past whom loved to get into heated arguments about politics. They had more then a couple of bumper stickers on their cars…

15. Posted by Kate Saltfleet - 06/26/2008

    I have a solitary window sticker that reads “Respect life, go veggie”. Must dash off to that anger management course right away!

16. Posted by Tiffany - 06/26/2008

    I have long believed that while one or two bumper stickers are a reasonable away to express and identify with whatever your ideology (or favorite band) happens to be, that there is a rapidly-approaching point at which you become A Crank. Like, if your stickers no longer fit on your bumper and have to go on your trunk, you might be a crank.

    I keep meaning to start AmICrankOrNot.com so people can post pictures of cars and vote on how crank-y the driver must be.

17. Posted by Sandy - 06/26/2008

    I read that article a few days ago and spent my commute home watching the cars and pickups that were speeding, cutting in and out of traffic and tail gating. None of them had bumper stickers. What that means I don’t really know. I don’t have bumper stickers on my car because you never know these days what someone will take offense to and of course, don’t like clutter. The only statement I have on my car is an Imagine specialty plate (Florida). As an old Beatles fan, I saw it and just had to have it.

18. Posted by Anne - 06/26/2008

    just a note to Shalin…

    my hubby likes bumper stickers…but not stuck.
    He bought a sheet of magnet strip, peeled the sticker to it. and cut around the sticker. Voila, a removable magnitized bumper sticker….and a heck of a fridge magnet!
    He has one at the moment that has been there for a while;
    What would Scooby Do?

19. Posted by H... - 06/26/2008

    @ANNE… Grand idea. I dont want to laminate anything on my car. It would be difficult to remove it. I dont put bump stickers on my car tho. More magnets taken out of the earth, the more it imbalance.

20. Posted by Michael (500 Apples) - 06/26/2008

    It’s funny, just this week my wife and I were making fun of this guy after seeing his classic “Don’t like my driving? Call 1-800-eat-sh*!” bumper sticker.

    For the record, we didn’t like his driving.

21. Posted by Mikey - 06/26/2008

    @amy I believe that was my point, most folks mistake the two.

22. Posted by Erika - 06/26/2008

    “The number of territory markers predicted road rage better than vehicle value, condition or any of the things that we normally associate with aggressive driving,”

    OK. So people who are inclined to have lots of bumper stickers also happen to be aggressive drivers. That doesn’t mean that if I, a nonaggressive driver, let the bumper stickers accumulate, I would then become an aggressive driver.

    There’s no decluttering lesson here. The lesson is: if you see a car with lots of bumper stickers, steer clear.

23. Posted by TheLoneIguana - 06/26/2008

    I had a Darwin fish on my car. Once, while stopped at a red light, a car blew past in the turn lane, while the woman in the passenger seat yelled “Heathen!” at me. She had crawled nearly halfway out the window.

    That same car had a small sticker that said “SUVS SUCK”. An SUV cut me off in traffic and I ended up hitting them. The police officer at the scene got a pretty big laugh out of that.

24. Posted by Charles - 06/26/2008

    Actually, I think it would be better if everyone left their bumper stickers on. It lets me more quickly identify which is a moron.

25. Posted by Kit - 06/26/2008

    @Shalin

    Like this??

    http://www.northernsun.com/n/s/2161.html

    it isn’t magnetic (so no unbalancing the Earth) and makes it easier to swap out bumper stickers as the mood fits (plus you keep it *inside* the car, so it can’t be marked up)

    if I had to make up stats, I would say that those who display the ‘Jesus Fish’ seem to drive more aggressively.

    I want a FSM medallion!!

26. Posted by Marc - 06/26/2008

    Who cares? Come the Rapture, my vehicle will be unmanned anyway.

27. Posted by sue - 06/26/2008

    A mild-mannered man was being tailgated by a stressed-out woman on a busy boulevard. Suddenly, the light turned yellow, just in front of him. He did the right thing, stopping at the crosswalk, even though he could have beaten the red light by accelerating through the intersection. The tailgating woman hit the roof, and the horn, screaming in frustration and flipping him a bird and shaking her fist as she missed her chance to get through the intersection. As she was still in mid-rant, she heard a tap on her window and looked up into the face of a very serious police officer. The officer ordered her to exit her car with her hands up. He took her to the police station where she was searched, finger printed, photographed and placed in a holding cell. After a couple of hours, a policeman approached the cell and opened the door. She was escorted back to the booking desk where the arresting officer was waiting with her personal effects. He said, “I’m very sorry for this mistake. You see, I pulled up behind your car while you were blowing your horn, flipping off the guy in front of you, and cussing a blue streak at him. I noticed the ‘Choose Life’ license plate holder, the ‘What Would Jesus Do?’ bumper sticker, the ‘Follow Me to Sunday School’ bumper sticker, and the chrome-plated Christian fish emblem on the trunk. Naturally, I assumed you had stolen the car!”

28. Posted by tabatha - 06/26/2008

    my uncle told me he doesn’t put billboards on his house so he wouldn’t put a bumper sticker on his car!

29. Posted by Dana - 06/26/2008

    About the one commenter who mentioned how nice it would be to be able to remove bumper stickers easily: My little girl’s dad puts bumper stickers on magnetic backing and affixes them to his car that way. If he gets tired of one or it fades he can just cover it over with a new one on the same magnet, assuming the new sticker is the same size. I’ve also seen magnetic holders with vinyl sleeves where you don’t even have to peel the sticker off its backing.

    I don’t mind them, myself. Usually they aren’t ads for anything in particular, so the billboard analogy isn’t particularly accurate. I guess I also don’t see the point of criticizing people generally for using bumper stickers, as one of the things about clutter is that the definition of same is very personal.

30. Posted by Dana - 06/26/2008

    Oh–although I have to laugh, because just this evening we were behind another car in traffic that had bumper stickers on its bumper–on the top horizontal surface of the bumper, where you had to be standing behind the car or reeeally crane your neck to see what the heck the stickers said. Had I not seen those particular stickers on other cars and in catalogs already I would have had no idea what the driver was trying to say!

31. Posted by sue - 06/27/2008

    I wonder how many rear-end accidents occur because people are trying to read all the stickers?

32. Posted by S - 06/27/2008

    I had stickers all over my MINI. “Lets Sip Not Guzzle,” “Actual Size,” “Once you have small you never go back,” a big magnet of Napolean Dynamite’s face, and the ever popular “The Short Bus” because it was a yellow and white Mini. I would sit in traffic and see every car around me snapping pics with their cell phones of the back of my car laughing. It wasn’t so bad, until I really offended someone in a Friendly’s (how ironic!) parking lot. They said that it was very insulting to “mentally challenged people” that I have “The Short Bus” written on my car. I told her in no way was I trying to insult anyone with a handicap by those words, I was merely stating it looks like a SHORT BUS, and I apologized if I offended her. She ate her words, and then she had to sit and eat her food in the booth next to me.

33. Posted by Leslie - 06/27/2008

    Although I personally don’t have bumper stickers – just one “Support our Troops” magnet, I enjoy other people’s stickers – it gives me something to read when stuck in traffic.

34. Posted by John of Indiana - 06/27/2008

    I used to have almost the whole Donnely-Colt catalogue on the back of my ’72 Kombi.
    These days I settle for “Cleverly Disguised as a Responsible Adult” back there…

35. Posted by Kristen@recoveringfoodwaster - 06/27/2008

    I was going to say what Amy and Erika said about correlation and causation. Someone who is prone to being aggressive and angry isn’t going to suddenly become calm if they take the bumper stickers off the back of their car.

36. Posted by Susan - 06/27/2008

    There’s a happy “Just turned 50– so what the hell am I taking so seriously?” woman in our neighborhood that has an old beat-up white sedan–that she’s recently christened with masses of adorable cartoon and anime decals- complete with “Happy Geek Grrrl!” sticker on the back and a Scrooge McDuck decal on the gas cover. I adore it and told her so.
    That said, I am way too absent minded (and worked way too many hours as a promotions wench with different company’s ads plastered on my chest/butt/hat/shoes) to put a bumper sticker or custom plate frame on my car.
    These days I feel that I don’t HAVE to wear an opinion or ad unless I’m being paid to do so, and I figure that if someone wants to know my opinion, they can get to know me…otherwise, there’s too many scary freaks out there who might take exception and act out towards me or my car in an under-medicated moment.
    (Okay, I STILL want flame decals and a glowing skull gear shift knob…but that’s just ‘ucz I’m odd..)

37. Posted by Shalin - 06/30/2008

    @Anne, @Kit – thanks for the suggestions! I knew that the product had to be out there somewhere!

    Best,
    Shalin

38. Posted by Kris - 06/30/2008

    I have two rows of four bumper stickers on my minivan. One row is actually adhered to the bumper and the other row are affixed to large magnets and stay on that way. They are neat, in a row and symmetrical. I also have various stickers on the windows. I have had one person in four years have a negative reaction to them and have had possibly over 100 have a good reaction. I get notes all the time on my windshield saying “I love your bumper stickers”. Some of these stickers include:

    * Don’t Pray In My School and I Won’t Think In Your Church
    * Humans Aren’t The Only Species .. We Just Act Like It
    * That Flag Decal Still Won’t Get You Into Heaven
    * D.A.R.E. … To Think For Yourself
    * If Going To Church Makes You A Christian, Does Going To The Garage Make Me A Car?
    * When Facism Comes To America, It Will Be Draped In A Flag and Holding A Bible

    I also have the Darwin fish, a tree of life and various other little things back there. Everyone knows my van and my friends love reading the new stickers I put on there. I do get them from northernsun.com and replace them as they get dirty or worn out.

    I’ve never been involved in or witnessed an accident due to my stickers.

39. Posted by Kris - 06/30/2008

    I just thought of something. I also have “Autistic Child On Board” stickers on either side of my van. Should we be involved in an accident, the rescue/emergency workers would need to know that my son is non-verbal and wouldn’t respond to their commands.

    Maybe seeing those Autism stickers has a calming effect on those who might be ‘raging’ at my other bumper stickers? Maybe they think ‘oh, she has a child in there and he’s Autistic so we’ll leave her alone”. I doubt it, but it crossed my mind.

    Just a thought.

40. Posted by Kelly - 08/17/2008

    I think that perhaps people are more likely to get in arguments over the bumper stickers they have on their cars, and therefore those statistics were born. I’m not the kind of person to get mad at anybody on the road, but I know I have had had many people angry and full of venomous road-rage after viewing my very liberal bumper stickers, particularly cops in right-wing areas. Ohhh, the amount of times I have been pulled over for being 5 miles over the speed limit when people around me are zooming past me, I couldn’t tell you.

41. Posted by anOnymous - 11/06/2008

    How are we going to remove all of those “Dissent Is The Highest Form Of Patriotism” bumper stickers?

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