Obviously cars are much more integrated into our social system here and culturally Americans really value individualism and personal expression so it makes sense that it would be popular here.

Here in the states, bumper sticks are mostly reserved for political ideologies or affiliations, college/university pride, fraternities or sororities, sports teams, religious beliefs, social beliefs (adopt don’t shop; shop local), jokes, crass or antagonistic phrases, beach towns (OBX, OCMD, MV), and all sorts of other obscure trashy content or pop culture references. Do you guys do this? If not cars, something else perhaps?

19 comments
  1. Not quite bumper stickers, but in Holland you can occassionally see a car with a fish sign on the back. It’s the ichtus sign and indicates the owner of the car is Christian.

    As for actual bumper stickers, I rarely see any. I think people are less inclined to put stickers of their football team on their car because sports rivalries tend to be a lot more hostile and cars can get vandalised for those reasons.

  2. They’re not very common in the UK, they’re mostly seen as childish and silly in the same vein as poking holes in your exhaust/putting a large exhaust on a cheap car to make it sound louder. You’ll sometimes see a fish sign on the back of a car and it means the owner is christian, and sometimes you’ll see a fish with legs meaning that the owner believes in evolution instead of creation. But otherwise, I don’t think I could tell you the last time I saw some kind of bumper sticker on a car.

  3. Bumper stickers are not a thing because we don’t drive gigantic trucks and bumpers are knee-high, so too low to be seen. People will put some stickers on the back though, usually younger people and other people with low self-confidence that need to telegraph their worries, most usually the flag of the region for which they want to get independence, other political slogans, etc. More common are scarfs or banners of the football team displayed in the back seat or window. People must be careful though with the regulations that apply to vehicles, from the position of lights, mirror visibility, to the stickers of vehicle inspection to highway cards/payment/permit that must be clearly displayed for mechanical reading.

    This is more common in lower end brands. People with new Audis, Mercedes, Porsches,… want their car immaculate.

  4. It’s not common at all to see bumper stickers on cars over here, but even if you see one it will definitely not be political or sports team affiliated cause those will eventually result in your car being destroyed lol

  5. I wouldn’t say they’re common, quite the opposite actually and I’m not even sure I ever seen one (if we talk about bumper stickers proper). I think that in general we don’t like much to “mess” with our cars in such ways that much

  6. The Saxon Steed is very common in my region. Obviously on cars of people on the lower end of the social class ladder.

    [example](https://i.imgur.com/h51ZUXX.jpg)

    Other than that I wouldn’t say it’s common. The back windshields sometimes are stickered with a stick family.

  7. Not very common. I sometimes see the Christian fish thing, or “Yes” ones for Scottish independence, but the most common one is probably the “National Trust member” one, which means you’re a member of the national trust and you can get into their properties (castles, palaces, country houses, gardens…) for free and park your car without paying, hence the sticker.

  8. The most common one is the legally mandated “studded tyres” sticker.

    Then there’s “baby on board” and “lady behind the wheel” stickers.

    After this we get into vatnik territory. From vatnik-adjacent “thank you, grandpa, for the victory” to “we can do it again” and “trophy” stickers on German cars, to the stick man with a hammer and sickle for the head anally raping the stick man with a swastika for the head. Then it’s Z’s of all kind, preferably defiantly drawn on the cling wrap covering the place where their window used to be.

  9. Not that common in my experience, but there could be regional differences of course. And most people here don’t display their political affiliation, religious or social beliefs anywhere in real life. You wouldn’t know what your neighbors voted for or what they believe here.

  10. Most common I see are Z stickers, which means Začiatočník aka newbie driver.

    Other ones are Name on board(variation of baby on board). Parents and especially grandparents have name of their kid/grandkid on these stickers.

  11. Not bumper (this is almost never the place where these are located here), but stickers at the rear of the car in general: It feels they were rather common in the 90s and were often placed at the rear window, usually stickers with the logo of a town visited on vacation, or more or less funny jokes about a rivaling car manufacturer, or baby on board.

    By now all of this is very uncommon as far as I can see. You still rarely see a baby on board or ichtus sign, or a sticker with the silhouette of the island [Sylt](https://i.ebayimg.com/thumbs/images/g/nPsAAOSwJqxa7qOQ/s-l300.webp) but not nearly as much as back then.

  12. Not really a thing.

    For me a car is just to get me from point a to point b.

    My job I do by bike and shopping is in walking distance leaving the car with not overly much to do to the point I’ve looked up how long gas can stay in the gas tank without going bad.

  13. Really, apart from a country identifier (GB, UK or Wales / England / Scotland / NI), you occasionally see women with stuff like “powered by fairy dust” stickers on the back of their car.

    The only other thing I can think of is motorsport fans with stickers showing the outline of a circuit on their car, eg the Nurburgring in Germany, or a UK circuit like Brands Hatch or Oulton Park.

  14. I’ve traveled extensively in the UK, and have spent some time in Greece and Russia and Spain and Holland and Germany and France and Italy… I’ve never seen a bumper sticker in these places.

    i was born in the States, so I went looking! i know the cultural significance of the bumper sticker to the American mind.

    But I’ve never seen one here, I’m happy to say. They don’t fill me with joy, those things.

  15. There are a few common ones. The most common ones are baby on board stickers in different variations.

    Then there are stickers associated with towns/villages like the coat of arms or a marketing sticker from the local town marketing.

    And then you may have membership stickers for volunteer fire brigades, red cross etc. signifying that the car owner is an active member (maybe on his way to get to the fire department to put out the fire in your house).

    And something that has popped up recently are Austrian flag stickers with “Austria” in several different names, on offroad vehicles.

  16. They’re really unusual here, to the extent that if you do see one then there’s a good chance the owner is an American (I saw a car with about half a dozen plastered over the back a couple of years ago, with such classics as “Hilary 2016”, “We Stand with Israel” and a wee Christian thing). Window stickers are more common in the UK, probably due to them being easier to remove.

  17. I live in Italy but I am from Romania and travelled a bit around Europe. I have never seen bumper stickers as you guys do in the US. Maybe “baby on board” or paws indicating that the owner has an animal or Maybe stickers of the family, like Mom, Dad, the kids with their names. But I’m not sure that qualifies as a bumper sticker.

    Other than that people rarely put stickers on their cars. Except my dumb work colleague who has “pornhub” and his Insta name as stickers. Bless his heart.

  18. Can’t really think of any bumper stickers and only like a few windows stickers really, but there is one sticker I’ve seen on multiple cars. It’s the Ferrari logo but with a moose instead of a horse on Volvos.

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