I have no objection to displaying a current motor tax or insurance disc. I'm just as happy to have a notice saying my car has passed its latest NCT exam. But despite being a fully qualified father of three (all categories), I still cannot bring myself to put one of those "Baby on Board" stickers on my rear window.
Not that there is anything wrong - apart from its utter futility - about new parents appealing to others to drive more carefully. If early parenthood is not a time for insane optimism about the chances of creating a better world, when is? This is an outside possibility, I admit; but if even one person who was planning to crash into the back of your car is persuaded to think again for the sake of your child, the message will have been worth it.
Besides, the signs may serve a separate purpose. I have long argued that the primal urge to display "Baby on Board" stickers is in fact nature's way of alerting other road users to the dangers posed by driving parents. It warns them that you may be suffering from sleep deprivation, for one thing. And it also flags your liability to be distracted at crucial moments by the aforementioned baby.
Imagine this, common enough, scenario. You are trying to change lanes on the Red Cow Roundabout in wet conditions at rush-hour on a bank holiday Friday. Then you hear a sound from the back seat that may or may not be the baby throwing up.
You know that the correct behaviour at this time is to keep your eyes firmly on the road ahead, INSTEAD OF LOOKING AROUND, WHICH IS WHAT YOU'RE DOING. Unfortunately, keeping your eyes on the road at such moments takes superhuman strength. So now you have rear-ended the car in front (even though it had a "Baby on Board" sign too).
Anyway, considerate as it might be to other drivers, my stupid male pride will not let me put up one of these stickers, because that would be an admission of weakness. Also, I know from experience that babies are not the worst in-car hazard. Older children are an even bigger threat to a driver's concentration, especially when they have one of their territorial rows over toys, or arm-rests, or breathing-space, which happens every two minutes. Come to think of it, "Feuding Siblings on Board" would be a really useful warning to drivers behind.
There are many signs that would be more useful than "Baby on Board". "Drink on board", for example, might well persuade other drivers to increase their braking distance from you. "Consignment of stolen cigarettes on board" would be helpful to the Garda. And at the risk of bad taste, you could certainly improve other people's driving habits with the sign "Suicide bomber on board". That would definitely dissuade me from tail-gating.
BUT GETTING AWAY from cars and roads altogether, I can think of a scenario where "Baby on Board" signs would be a big help. Namely: if they were displayed somewhere on the clothing of expectant mothers, especially friends and colleagues of mine.
This would eliminate one of the most embarrassing social situations possible: when you meet someone you haven't seen for a while and congratulate her on her obviously happy condition, only to learn that she's not pregnant.
Or worse, you bump into someone you remember was pregnant the last time you met and who, unknown to you, has not only given birth since then but has spent the past three months in the gym trying to regain her figure - something she thought she was making progress with until you put your size 12s in it by asking: "When's it due?" I have never committed either of these gaffes, thank God, but only because I know of others who have, and I live in terror of emulating them. Which is why I always err at the other extreme, by never mentioning pregnancy to a female friend - no matter how large the subject looms between us - unless she drops a strong hint about her condition, such as showing me photographs of her scan.
The absence of hints can be excruciating. I met a friend once on the street - this is a true story - whom I knew to have been in the later stages of pregnancy the last time we spoke. The problem was: how long ago had that been? It could have been three months; it could have been 10.
It was winter now, so she was wearing a big coat. No help there. I knew that if she had had the baby, somebody would probably have told me. But then again, I'm a man. And the vast amount of mental storage space a man needs for remembering obscure incidents from football matches that happened 20 years ago means there is not always enough room for things like the birth of other people's children.
So the two of us stood there talking about the weather, and the traffic, and the global economic outlook. And all the while I was doing frantic calculations: had we met in June or September? Was she five months gone, or eight? And the part of my brain not involved in this was trying to formulate a message of congratulations that would cover every possibility from the start of her third trimester to the child's first birthday.
But nothing suggested itself. So we just kept talking and ignored the elephant in the room - or on the footpath - until we went our separate ways. I learned later that her baby was born the day afterwards. If only I had kept the conversation going a bit longer, my friend might have dropped a hint by going into labour.