Do baby on board signs help emergency services, interested to hear from actual emergencyservices?

[Dinodigs]

I was recently talking to someone about baby on board signs and came across two different view points and wondered what the actual truth is and if they treat cars with stickers differently.

Friend one was saying the usual things about how they help emergency services know to look for a baby, which is what I've heard before

Friend two mentioned her police officer dad had told her to consider not getting one because he actually views them as more of a risk (in terms of people targeting vulnerability when cars parked, by your house etc) especially the stick figure family kind.

He also said that it doesnt make a difference to responses as they scan the whole car anyway (they wouldnt just not check the back properly, because there wasn't a sticker), that they would notice car seats, that 70% of the time cars with the sticker have no baby in them so they take them with a pinch of salt. Police officer dad said that it was more designed for times where babies were in arms, and that modern car seats are pretty immovable and bulky enough that they wouldnt slip under seats like a loose baby used to be able to.

I wondered what the actual truth is? Everyone seems to think it doesn't make a difference but to have one just incase

I know that I was once advised that the warning sleeves for car seats (eg non verbal, combative child) are better than stickers because they get crumpled on glass in accidents

Its also true that when mine were little that I had a sticker in my car, dad's car and actually grandparents bought themselves a sticker. 90% of our driving was work driving with no baby in the car, but no body took them down

Your last paragraph demonstrates why they are useless other than as a twee little signal that you think other drivers will try harder not to crash into you than anyone else because of the baby. Think about it - if they really served as a signal to emergency responders they’d be compulsory by law and you could be fined for putting them at risk by declaring there’s a child in the car when there isn’t, causing them to spend longer looking fruitlessly for a child in a burning or collapsing vehicle, or not displaying one when you are actually carrying a child.

I put them in the same category as greetings cards for non-events - a cheap way to get people to part with money.

I saw one - “Keep your DISTANCE - give our CHILD a CHANCE” (actual capitals). That’s clearly not aimed at the emergency services is it?

It would have to be a pretty niche accident scenario for the car to be so managled that a child in a massive car seat isn’t visible but somehow a tiny square a plastic affixed with a bit of sticky miraculously survives intact…
If they could serve ANY useful purpose it could maybe be in car parks to indicate you’ll be getting kids out of car seats so please don’t park too close. But mostly I think they’re twee and a bit silly.

They are pointless nonsense. People thinking that they need to advertise that they have procreated. Even worse are the "lickle princess on board" or "grandchild on board". Urgh.

It would have to be a pretty niche accident scenario for the car to be so managled that a child in a massive car seat isn’t visible but somehow a tiny square a plastic affixed with a bit of sticky miraculously survives intact

And absolutely this.

No, obviously not.

If they paid any attention to them, they'd be unreliable, first responders would still have to always check and might waste time hunting for an infant since babies are not always in the car when it goes out.

Plus first responders always triage based on visible need and always assess the scene, signs aren't relevant, what they can see and deal with is.

And there is no emergency response system that mentions these signs.

Yeah I absolutely agree in hindsight. Interestingly friend a was pretty adamant, and googled it. There's lots of things online about them being for "first responders" which is clearly an American thing. Obviously since googling it, now I'm being flooded with fb posts about "obviously that's what they are for"

When they were little we got given ours, told that is what it was for and never thought much about it!

It's pretty insulting to first responders to think this surely.

What @UpTheWomen and @Bitzee said.

The stickers weren’t “designed for times when babies were in arms” at all. In “times when babies were in arms” those stickers absolutely weren’t a thing at all - they’re a relatively recent affectation. They didn’t really become a thing until the 90s, and babies were in car seats by then.

They don’t achieve anything. They’re not really for anything. They’re just a gimmicky thing and generally associated with naffness. The only thing they’re designed for is making money.

As a child in the late 70s and 80s, nobody had those stickers. It really became a thing in the late 90s.

Very surprised on googling to find car seats only became a legal requirement in 2006, I had my first in 2003 and was sure it was a legal requirement then. Rear seatbelts have been a thing for a lot longer.

That's very far from true. Loads of people were driving around with children being held by adults in both back and front seats in the 90s. It wasn't until sometime in the late 90s that you were obliged to use rear seat belts even, for anyone. Any specific legislation about babies and children in cars wasn't passed until 2006.

They’re nothing more than a novelty item picked up when a couple is shopping for baby stuff. Maybe for some it’s about road safety and other drivers being careful but I don’t think the majority.

Actually, the requirement to wear seatbelts in the rear seats became law in 1991.

Fairly pointless but I do love our Baby Groot one as it makes me smile so it’s worth that at least!

I’m a paramedic and have never even noticed any stickers when attending an RTC. Definitely pointless.

They're just twee bullshit.

If they are there to assist emergency services look for a baby car seat that might have been thrown out the car in an accident then that means every time you travel without your baby you should be removing the sticker because its wasting paramedic time otherwise but people dont do this.

If its to tell other car drivers to be more careful then its completely pointless because people who are drunk driving or merely careless arent going to GAF anyway as if they did they wouldn't be driving carelessly in the first place.

I cringe when I see them, they are so so naff

They're probably pointless, although sometimes when I'm driving I wish aggressive drivers would understand why I'm not taking risks at a junction or roundabout or going any faster, and it's because I'm driving carefully with my baby. I don't have a sticker though.

What I can't understand is why there is much hatred towards those stickers... Seriously, why are people wound up about them? Even if pointless, they're just a cute / fun thing for proud parents to stick on their cars. Get over it.

After making money (of course) the theory was the act of buying them and fitting them might wake some men parents the fuck up and remind them they are parents.

I'll leave it to the thread to decide if they work or not.

What I can't understand is why there is much hatred towards those stickers... Seriously, why are people wound up about them? Even if pointless, they're just a cute / fun thing for proud parents to stick on their cars. Get over it.

Finding something irritating isn't the same as hating it. I don't think they are cute or fun at all. I think they are twee and ridiculous. Doesn't mean I hate them or am that wound up.

I do hate the persistent myth that they are for the benefit of paramedics and the way people seem to think they offer so e kind of protective forcefield around their car or that driving with one means they deserve extra consideration.

I beg your pardon. You are right, of course. Faulty memory.

They don't help anyone at all. They just rile up other drivers on account of their twee naffness.

All they’re really saying is “hooray we’re fertile” when you think about it!

So my dad was a traffic police officer in the 1980s and 1990s before baby car seats and he said they were useful then as police at the scene of an accident knew to look for a baby that may have travelled out of a window and landed far from the car. Pretty pointless now as babies are strapped in.

So, an emergency responder will not notice a car seat (which does not tend to be small), but will notice a sticker that is very small in comparison? Seems mad. Or, if the car is that mangled that the car seat can’t be detected, how will the sticker on the window have survived? Also seems mad.