They’ve become as common as roof rails or tow bars – those bright yellow ‘baby on board’ signs are a fixture of the modern school run. Yet, a Confused.com survey places doubt on how safe they are.
Are baby on board signs the modern equivalent of a nodding dog on the parcel shelf – tacky and a dangerous obstruction to rear visibility?
According to a new poll by Confused.com, almost two in five parents have displayed a baby on board sign in their car, either now or in the past.
The poll of 2,000 drivers found that 80% of those who use baby on board signs think that they improve safety. But of those who display these signs, apparently 46% don’t remove them when the child isn’t in the car.
Plus, 5% of those surveyed said they’ve been involved in an accident due to stickers or toys in car windows obscuring their view. Perhaps that’s not surprising when 46% in Confused.com’s poll think baby on board signs obscure vision when driving.
Julie Townsend, deputy chief executive of the charity Brake, commented on the survey:
‘Baby on board signs are useful in alerting the emergency services that a child may be involved in the event of a crash. This help can become a hindrance if drivers display signs when their child isn’t in the vehicle. Worse still is the danger that can be posed by drivers obscuring their view by cluttering up windows with lots of signs.’
Clutter obscuring your view?
When these signs first came out, I thought they were intended to change driving behaviour. You know, ‘I’ve got a baby on board, so make sure you don’t crash into me.’ That’s why my initial reaction was to say, ‘so you think I’d be driving unsafely without the sticker in the rear window?’
But speaking with paramedics, I came to realise that these signs do let professionals know if there’s a child in the car in the case of a crash. If, of course, there’s actually a child on board.
So, do you use a baby on board sign? Have you ever felt it’s an obstruction?
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