Parents horrified after learning the real reason ‘baby on board’ car signs exist

Many people decide to have a ‘baby on board’ sticker in the rear window of their cars after having a baby – but it turns out many people had no idea it might not be there just to signal to other drivers that they should drive carefully

It’s common for parents to have a cute ‘baby on board’ sign at the back of the car window after they’ve had a little one. Many assume that this is either to signal to others that you might drive a bit more carefully, and to encourage others to be more patient too.

But apparently, this isn’t the only reason why the ‘baby on board’ sign exists – and parents have been left horrified by the fact they didn’t know. Taking to TikTok, user @pentagrammotorsport, a motorsport expert based in North East England, asked: “Are you using the baby on board sign wrong? Do you realize how these things are supposed to work?”

The driving expert continued: “Is it there to say ‘I’ve got a baby in the car, therefore I might be a bit distracted’? (…). That’s not actually what this is for.”

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The expert continued: “This is a sign to the emergency services. If they find your car crashed, passed out in the car, or rolled down a bank, this is a sign to say they need to stay at the scene to look and find the baby that was onboard. That’s the purpose of this sign.”

In fact, leaving it stuck to your rearview window all the time might actually be a problem – because emergency services might assume you have a child in the car.

And it turns out many people had no idea – and some were left horrified. “I always thought it was to warn other drivers to drive safely,” said one shocked person. “Just noticed mine is still there and she’s almost five,” said another.

And some emergency service personnel shared their perspective: “Paramedic here, genuinely makes my heart sink seeing these badges at RTCs (road traffic collisions) especially when you’re frantically searching for a missing baby only for it to turn up perfectly fine at home with someone else.”

Another added: “As a fireman it’s crazy how many people don’t know this. Been at awful scenes where we’ve been crawling through wreckage only to get a phone call from the hospital to say the fathers turned up with the baby to see the victim. Very dangerous.”

And another simply said: “The fact some people don’t know this is terrifying.” However, there is a big debate about whether or not this was the first intended purpose of the sign.

It’s believed the baby on board sign was first created by Michael Lerner, a former real estate investor from the US, in 1984. After driving his 18 month old nephew for the first time, he realized people were impatient at his driving and wanted to find a way to keep him safe.

He teamed up with sisters Patricia and Helen Bradley who had been trying to promote the signs and founded Safety 1st. Using his contacts in the retail industry, he was able to make it a success, and 10,000 signs were sold in the first month.

Julie-Anne Newman, Acting Sergeant from Victoria Police, told Mamamia: “If the police were to see a sticker such as ‘Baby on Board’ when attending a collision scene, they may keep this in mind however – in the first instance information would be gleaned from the scene, from victims, from witnesses and from police inquiries.”

And former paramedic Nikki Jurcutz, co-founder of first aid training program Tiny Hearts Education, took to Instagram to say that the Baby on Board signs aren’t the only thing that gets looked at. “During my time as a paramedic, I was trained to assess the whole situation. Paramedics aren’t just relying on a baby on board sign, they are looking for clues that a child may have been in the vehicle, like car seats, and baby bags,” she said.

Meanwhile, Mark Hall, spokesperson for car hire company Flexed.co.uk, said: “It may seem a relatively trivial issue to some but it could become a life-or-death situation in the event of a serious road accident. It’s one of those urban myths that are actually true – emergency services really do take these signs as gospel.”

According to insurance company Go Girl, it’s both. They said: “A baby on board sign is there to tell other road users that you’ve got a baby in the car. They are also used to alert the emergency services that there might be a child in the vehicle who is unable to unbuckle and free themselves after an accident or collision.”