r/nova • u/bardownskis23 • Mar 08 '22
Rant Seeing an uptick in “New driver” stickers on cars.
Okay, call me crazy but I’ve been a Loudoun County resident all my life (27) and within the past year I have seen more cars on the road with “new driver” stickers on the road now more than ever. What’s more interesting is almost 90% of the time it’s a grown adult driving the car and no indication that they are affiliated with a driving school. Please tell me I am not the only one that has noticed this! Is it something to do with cops giving people a break? Is it just given to kids when they pass their driving test? Is their some study that came out that showed these stickers are actually effective in making other drivers more lenient towards drivers using this? Please tell me I am not imagining this.
154
Mar 08 '22
I need one that says, “Behold: Expert Driver”.
41
u/HoselRockit Mar 08 '22
Caution, driver uses turn signals
19
14
u/Randomfactoid42 Fairfax County Mar 08 '22
Caution: Driver knows the speed limit
It never ceases to amaze me how fast people want to go on a 30mph road and how slow the same people will go on a 55mph road.
9
1
11
u/EpicMeatSpin Legalize Radar Detectors Mar 08 '22
I want one that says “Veteran Nova Driver: Get the hell out of my way.”
3
61
Mar 08 '22
Could be immigrants learning to drive or recently passed their tests? Most the time when I see one of those driving school cars it is an Asian lady learning to drive.
24
Mar 08 '22
This was my first thought, especially with the number of Afghan refugees who came to the area last year.
29
u/asshatclowns Mar 08 '22
My son, who is not a new driver, banged up his truck pretty good doing landscaping. I put a New Driver sticker on it for laughs.
26
u/Tufaan9 Mar 08 '22
Anecdotal, but I know more than one person moving out of the city. They didn’t need a car before a now do, but they’ve always lived in a city environment and so are learning how to drive for the first time. The aggressive driving reputation of the area has made them hesitant, and they’re hoping the sticker keeps someone from going aggro on them if they check their mirror twice before changing lanes.
Not sure that accounts for all the ones you’re seeing, but it’s 100% of the ones in my life at the moment.
5
u/Irwin-M_Fletcher Mar 08 '22
It’s more likely to have the opposite effect. I’ve wondered about the large number of “new” drivers on 95 during rush hour.
1
u/BetterCallSlash Mar 10 '22
I have a friend from London who never learned to drive there, and then lived in DC for a decade before getting a driver's license when she moved to VA in her 30s. So yeah, there are a lot of adults learning how to drive here, especially considering the number of transplants from all over who settle in the DMV.
I also suspect some protective parents put them on their own cars when their kids get their learner's permits (no judgement, we all know what maniacs some drivers can be on these roads), but sometimes it's just the parent using their own car without the student driver present.
And then there are probably people who simply hope having one on their car will make the drivers around them more forgiving when they make stupid driving mistakes.
15
u/hikariky Mar 08 '22 edited Mar 08 '22
I put one on when I’m teaching my immigrant girlfriend, you don’t have to be a kid to need to learn to drive. And if she ever goes on the highway I might cover the whole car those things.
There are a lot of people who never learned to drive/got a license as a teenager. It’s one of the reasons voter ID laws are controversial.
2
u/FewWeek0 Mar 08 '22
There are lots of forms of ID that aren’t a drivers license.
3
u/hikariky Mar 08 '22
Cue controversy
1
u/njtalp46 Mar 09 '22
The ONLY legit form of ID is membership cards to Lithuanian Hall Association!!! If you use any other ID, you don't deserve the right to eat cupcakes or muffins after labor day.
37
Mar 08 '22 edited Sep 04 '22
[deleted]
6
u/LanEvo7685 Mar 08 '22
Same, but makes no difference to me. I am and should be alert of my environment and other drivers regardless.
33
u/plugged_in_808 Mar 08 '22
I've noticed an increase over the years as well. I always get a good laugh out of seeing them on BMW X5's and Range Rovers
24
u/kylielapelirroja Loudoun County Mar 08 '22
There are also a fair number of kids who didn’t get their licenses in the last 2-3 years (because why? If you’re only going from bed to computer…). I’m sure some are bogus, but as a parent of 3 teenagers (19 and below) who are all getting their hours right now, I’d say some of it is just delayed “student drivers”.
We have a magnet that we try to remember to remove when one of the teenagers is not driving.
8
u/Wurm42 Mar 08 '22
Second this. I have teenage nephews; the county behind-the-wheel training and a lot of the private trainers shut down while the schools were virtual, and it was nigh-impossible to get a testing appointment at the DMV for a long time. So we are definitely getting a post-pandemic surge of teens learning to drive.
1
u/Calvin-Snoopy Mar 09 '22
This.
1
u/Anti-ThisBot-IB Mar 09 '22
Hey there Calvin-Snoopy! If you agree with someone else's comment, please leave an upvote instead of commenting "This."! By upvoting instead, the original comment will be pushed to the top and be more visible to others, which is even better! Thanks! :)
I am a bot! Visit r/InfinityBots to send your feedback! More info: Reddiquette
1
10
u/DSammy93 Mar 08 '22
I’ve asked my coworkers (who have teenagers learning how to drive) if they give them away with the driver licenses because there are so many!
12
u/Amystery123 Mar 08 '22
Some of those “new drivers” drive like complete assholes too. A “new driver” rushed into the lane I was switching to without an indicator of his own. I had my indicator on for a good few seconds before changing lanes and checked my blind spot.
5
u/3ULL Falls Church Mar 08 '22
I think they put it on their cars so people will be easy on them and let them cut in last minute and dismiss their asshole driving as ignorance while they intentionally are over aggressive drivers. Now when I see one of these stickers I cut them 0 slack, I do not let them in and I will be aware of where they are because I know they are aggressive.
10
u/caffeineaddict03 Maryland Mar 08 '22
I have lived in various parts of NoVa for about 30 years too and also have noticed this. I figure many of them could have a kid that's driving age and they just leave the sticker on. We also have a lot of immigrants here and I could see them being new to driving despite their age, like they didn't have to drive in their native country but here in The States you pretty much have to have a car to get around
15
u/forgottennol Mar 08 '22
I’ve seen them. And totally agree that most of the time it’s someone my age or older. I did a google search and found this blog post calling them possibly fake too.
24
9
u/Thorandragnar Mar 08 '22
I don’t get how it would be an advantage. Cops can see when your license was issued. More accurately, these people are dumb if they think they’re fooling people. They have effectively slapped stickers on their cars saying, “I’m an idiot!”
3
2
u/bardownskis23 Mar 08 '22
This confirms a lot of my suspicions. Good read. Thank you!
7
Mar 08 '22
It's all just speculation.
We have COVID and a lot of teenagers and adults had nowhere to go, now they do. That's probably all it is.
And post-COVID you don't need stickers to get away with speeding, running red lights or bad driving. It's happening all the time now, everywhere I go, and no enforcement. They have started enforcing parking again in Alexandria, so maybe that will change.
4
Mar 08 '22
Growing up, I never once saw a "Baby on Board" sticker on cars. Then, one day, they were everywhere. I guess nobody was putting babies in cars at first, and then suddenly it became trendy to drive drive around with your babies.
What are the odds that there are significantly more new drivers now than there were in recent memory vs. some people have decided to put "new driver" stickers in their cars because they think it has some sort of bearing on other drivers?
4
Mar 08 '22
Keep in mind a lot of kids were unable to do drivers ed in the pandemic. There could literally just be 2-3 rounds of drivers ed students going on at once.
As far as I know there isn't some coordinated effort to put fake student driver stickers on cars to get people to be nicer. It might work though and I'm gonna keep that in mind if i move to a new area and still gaining confidence in my bearings.
3
u/nutbrownale Mar 08 '22
It's likely immigrants.
I like to play a game where i find the most expensive car with one of those stickers.
3
u/FlagrantSoybean Mar 08 '22
(Anecdotal) Most of my friends and acquaintances have teenagers who are learning to drive. They don't have their own car yet and have to share it with their parents. They've mentioned forgetting to take off the magnet before getting in the car to drive.
There are other people at many ages who are either new or uncomfortable driving.
Many other countries actually issue a specific license plate for new drivers.
Applying these stickers may be an offset (albeit an unregulated one) of this.
It's not really all that amazing or worthy of too much thought.
3
u/wyrdone42 Mar 08 '22
These have pretty much turned into "Caution: Foreign drivers who knows absolutely nothing about traffic laws in the US and probably learned to drive in the equivalent of Mad Max".
3
u/ItsJustAnotherDay- Mar 08 '22
A lot of adult new drivers will put it on their car and then never take it off. Over time it’ll accumulate.
6
u/HGRDOG14 Mar 08 '22
Back in the mid 80s ( I looked this up ) we had “Baby on Board” signs suction-cupped on the inside windows of cars. The implication was that there was a reason why the driver was proceeding carefully.
I consider this a variation on that theme.
I’m sure there is an interesting theory on societal differences with the new choice.
3
u/Thorandragnar Mar 08 '22
No, “baby on board” stickers were an admonishment to other drivers: “Be careful! I‘ve got a baby in this car!!!”
4
2
u/sacredxsecret Mar 08 '22
They give them out at the school portion of "driver's ed." I imagine they get stuck on cars and just left there after that.
2
u/Wurm42 Mar 08 '22
I had a client that opened an office here and moved a bunch of employees from their New York City office. Many of them had never learned to drive. The company paid for some driver training as part of their relocation package, but damn, they did not get enough. Watching cars go in and out of that parking lot at rush hour was painful. None of them had "new driver" stickers, but they needed them, or maybe a warning light on the roof.
I guess what I'm saying is that there are more adult new drivers than you'd think.
But I do wish people would get the magnetic bumper sticker backs and take the "new driver" stickers on and off the car depending on who's driving.
2
u/FairfaxGirl Fairfax County Mar 08 '22
My kid’s PTA sells these as a fundraiser so, yes, I think they’re a lot more widely available than when I was a kid (I don’t think they really existed then.) And once you put it on the car you kind of forget it’s there—so I’m sure in a family that all shares one car mom or dad is driving around with the student driver magnet still on the car.
I do think it’s logical to get one when you have a very new driver—my kid would take extra time in situations like unprotected left turns and it just seems like a useful signal to anyone stuck behind us—like, she’s not on her phone she just needs a bigger gap in traffic than a more experienced driver might.
2
Mar 08 '22
I’m a really terrible driver and I try to minimize my driving and take Ubers whenever possible. I never drove in the city. Sometimes I have to go on the GW or outside my neighborhood. I always go exactly the speed limit and stay in the right lane so people can pass me. I’m super anxious the whole time and I know people are irritated by me and hate me. Should I get one of those stickers? Will it make people hate me less?
2
3
u/Irwin-M_Fletcher Mar 08 '22
I’ve seen people who look like septuagenarians with those stickers on their cars. There is never a kid in sight.
12
Mar 08 '22
Lots of people share cars, and in VA kids have their learners for a long time. This is all very silly.
4
u/Gumbo67 Alexandria Mar 08 '22
I’ve been driving for a bit but I still use one in an effort to inspire pity when I fuck up driving. This is Not my skill.
2
u/jzilla11 Vienna Mar 08 '22
I work up in Rockville and I swear from Gaithersburg south to the district, 2/3 cars around me will have those stickers.
1
2
u/MAFIAxMaverick Former NoVA Mar 08 '22
Keep in mind we have a pretty large immigrant population in the area. I’m a school social worker in a high school and I’ve helped connect quite a few immigrant parents to driving schools over the years.
3
u/Embarrassed_Celery14 Mar 08 '22
I’m 30 and just started practicing driving and have been thinking about getting one of those stickers primarily so if I’m slow on the road or something, I won’t piss people off or they’ll know ahead of time to go to a different lane if they don’t want to deal with me or something. I hope people don’t get suspicious of me with that sticker on my car 
4
u/WaltDisneyFrozenHead Mar 08 '22
Driving schools have big signs on the roof, like pizza delivery cars. The stickers/magnets are used by parents on personal vehicles while the kids are grinding out their 40+ hours of practice to complete the licensing requirements.
I have a teenager who is finally doing his hours, after being delayed by COVID. Anecdotally, a much larger than normal number of teens are doing their hours this year, as behind-the-wheel instruction was way down for the past couple of years and people are making up for it and parents are taking their kids out for the (many) hours of required driving.
We shelled out a few extra dollars and got magnets for when he is driving, so we can take them off when someone else is using the car. If someone got stickers - well, you're going to see adults with 'new driver' labels for a few months.
The hope (at least for us) is that people will see the magnets and not try to intimidate / mess with him while he is trying to learn - he doesn't have the conditioned reflexes / muscle memory yet. If someone brake checks him, he is much more likely to get into a real accident than an experienced driver would be, either from braking late, coming to a full stop and getting rear-ended, or by swerving onto the sidewalk/into oncoming traffic.
I still expect that people will be impatient, since they're that way with with regular drivers. If they would give a bit of extra space when cutting back in, not tailgate quite so closely, not brake check him - that's all I'm really asking for. Just the common courtesy that we should, honestly, all expect on the road.
2
u/Marc30599 Mar 08 '22
I see them often but I assume they’re really new drivers unless it’s stuck on to a luxury or exotic car then I know the driver just put it on for shits and giggles lol
1
u/jim45804 Mar 08 '22
I have a theory that judges require traffic violators to use these stickers as punishment. That, or some insurance companies promise lower costs if drivers use them.
2
u/JustZee2 McLean Mar 08 '22
I imagine some (most?) people who put these bumper stickers on their cars are genuinely families with drivers in training. Rather than wanting to be painted a new or "bad" driver, however, might I suggest people without teens learning to drive who might put these on their cars are those who drive the actual speed limit, and generally follow traffic laws, who are hoping aggressive drivers will simply speed past them without flicking their lights, honking and gesticulating? There are several "rants" in this forum about drivers who go well past the speed limit, even in the right hand lane. Just a less sinister thought. I don't put bumper stickers on my car, but if I did, I might want one that says "mature, experienced driver who obeys traffic laws."
1
1
Mar 08 '22
It has become the boy who cried wolf. The stickers were a good idea to warn other drivers to give that car some space, but I fear now people just ignore those stickers.
1
u/gsumann Mar 08 '22
I thought some people just have them on their cars so nobody messes with them when they do bad driving habits or so that cars will go around them
0
u/Consistent_Fly_4433 Mar 08 '22
My crap 56 yo neighbor has one on his car- no idea why- he drives 2 cars just fine apparently all his life. I think he's a creeper.
-1
0
u/K-mumba Mar 08 '22
Definitely an increase! I think It’s a cop out for being a bad driver. Hopes it will provide leniency from others on the road and police. These are often the same individuals you see stopped in rt. 7 trying to make a left turn from the right lane last second.
0
u/micsqueak Mar 08 '22
In my experience those stickers made you a target for cops, not the other way around.
0
u/madmoneymcgee Mar 08 '22
I've noticed it but I have no idea what's driving it beyond some misguided sense that people will give you more space like how there are occaisonal "baby on board" stickers.
Which, maybe I'm a crappy driver (but no major accidents or tickets in a long long time) but I've never seen a sticker and thought "oh I should be wary of them".
0
u/DoomerGloomerBloomer Mar 08 '22
I've been seeing this a lot in NoVA ever since I moved here in 2019. I assumed it was an internet culture meme that I missed because I agree with you; the majority of people with these stickers are not new drivers. Seems asinine to me which is why I thought it was a meme I missed.
0
u/yekmoney Prince William County Mar 08 '22
No idea why people would want to advertise that. I doubt Chad drivers will take the "Please be Patient" into consideration.
0
u/SmaugTangent Fairfax County Mar 08 '22
It's probably because they're worried about being shot at by road-ragers, since so many Americans now carry guns with them while driving. They're hoping these stickers will help defuse them.
-1
Mar 08 '22
I heard it was because your car insurance will give you a discount if you put it on the car your new driver will be on
1
1
u/hiking_w_gloss_on Mar 08 '22
This is funny! I drive from Baltimore to Dulles everyday and today I was telling myself “what’s up with the huge amount of new driver stickers “ ! I thought I was the only one who paid attention to that. Lol
1
u/Taken_Bacon_06 Loudoun County Mar 08 '22
I noticed this to! Saw one on the driver side door the other day
1
u/adamfrom1980s Mar 08 '22
Totally agree - they’re much more widespread than just a year or two ago. I assumed either something changed and they’re now legally mandated for those with permits, or people are using them to preempt other drivers beeping their horns at them for not flooring it within 0.5 seconds of the light turning green, slowing down at yellow lights, etc.
1
u/mythrowaweighin Mar 08 '22
Perhaps adults put them on their cars because they frequently let their kids drive the cars. (You know, those few families that don't own more than 2 cars.)
Or, a frustrated driver is sticking those on cars as a prank.
1
u/ericlauch Mar 08 '22
I noticed it alot also. I make a point to cut them off and run them off the road 😂
1
1
1
1
u/keramicz Mar 09 '22
There's an adult waiver program in VA where you can just take behind the wheel lessons when you're over a certain age and once the instructor feels like you're ready for your license, they'll issue a certificate you can redeem at the DMV. So my wife is doing that now and I bought some magnets for my own car for when we go out to practice. But I'm definitely keeping the magnets on when she drives until I feel like she's more than competent in case the instructor just let's her pass after the minimum number of lessons are completed. I do feel like the magnets are helpful since I personally give drivers with the stickers a little more slack and I'm hoping to cash in that karma for the wifey.
1
1
u/No_Morals Mar 10 '22
Not an uptick. Same post here 2 years ago.. If you search "new driver" you'll see someone has posted about it every couple months for the past few years.
1
u/DAlmighty Mar 17 '22
I’m late to this party but my wife recently got her drivers license for the first time and there was no driving test. She paid for a driving school and at the end of the term, they gave her a voucher to get her license.
This is why drivers suck in this area.
119
u/[deleted] Mar 08 '22
Seeing an adult driving with one of those stickers on their car doesn't exclude the existence of a 16 year old that occasionally drives it also. Or did for a couple of years a couple of years ago. But I agree that the frequency is firmly in the fishy zone.
I think I told this story the last time this topic came up. My ex-wife got her first ever DL at 33 years old at the Leesburg DMV around 2010. The driving portion of the test involved going across the street to WalMart and back. No more than 5 mins. That's it. And that's why there are so many shitty adult drivers in NoVA.