An insurance company poll claims Northwest drivers are particularly in love with bumper stickers, with 1 in 4 of us using our vehicle as our own personal pep rally (or soapbox, as the case may be).
Driving around Snohomish County, you will see a lot of 12th Fan shout-outs.
Others like to cheer their college alma maters, or the colleges they’re now sending checks to for their kids.
Certainly there are plenty of political rants to go around.
There are fish emblems, both without and with feet, and stickers calling for everyone to “coexist.”
I drove behind a beat-up little pickup on Everett Avenue whose driver might see stickers as an alternative to Bondo. (A favorite from that menagerie: “If ignorance is bliss, why aren’t more people happy?”)
There are as many variations on the stick-figure family decals as there are minivans. Snohomish County is home to a lot of zombies. But there are also Chewbacca fathers and Autobot mothers. And then there’s the one I saw in a parking lot between a construction site and the Imagine Children’s Museum in Everett — of a tyrannosaurus Rex chomping a fleeing clan of humans (“Your stick figure family WAS DELICIOUS”).
Those are all well and good.
But one of the best rear-end displays has got to be Chuck Johnston’s 1980s-era Jeep Cherokee. The vehicle is slathered with stickers, decals — and one bright green Hulk head. And there are still enough nooks and crannies for Johnston to keep adding more.
“My granddaughter calls it the clown car,” Johnston said. “My wife hates it.”
Come now, Barb, what’s not to love?
The vehicle actually isn’t used much except for its four-wheel drive. “I’m a bit embarrassed to ride in it,” Barb Johnston said, “but have to admit that it has been a lifesaver in snowy weather.”
Well, at least there’s that.
There’s something to draw from Barb’s emotional response to all those stickers, however.
Pemco Insurance is the company that commissioned the poll that triggered this column, and the pollsters also found that nearly 1 in 5 drivers admit they’re less courteous to drivers sporting bumper stickers with messages they oppose.
Some of you readers admit to this.
“I steer clear of cars cluttered with advocacy bumper stickers since I suspect that their conspiracy paranoia is indicative of a somewhat dysfunctional driver,” quips Dan Näsman, an Everett High School alumnus who now calls Port Townsend home.
Näsman probably gives better treatment to the driver of the car he spotted with the sticker, “Honk if I’m Norwegian!”
I know at least one person who has a visceral reaction to 49er and Bronco fan drivers. Given the amount of Seahawks stickers out there, I’m guessing there are quite a few more.
For many of us, though, the goal with stickers is not so much about shouting our views as simply sharing them.
Connie Coleman has used the same sticker on each of her three successive Subarus: “We All Live Downstream.” “I love the quote ’cause it’s so subtle,” Coleman said.
Kitty Megonnigil of Marysville has a custom decal on her Kia’s bumper honoring her granddaughter, Georgia Pemberton, who was killed in 2002 in a road-rage incident on Highway 104 in Edmonds.
“I watch people sometimes straining to read my sticker and it makes me feel good to know that reading it might help save lives,” Megonnigil said.
Art Johnson of Everett is a Vietnam veteran and turned the entire tailgate of his Dodge Ram pickäup into a poignant reminder of his friends who did not return from that conflict: “Some gave and some gave all.”
There are plenty of us who choose to say nothing at all, of course, and we don’t even drive Rabbits.
Driving around the corner the other day, I bumped (not literally) into a man from Bothell who doesn’t care for bumper stickers much but was driving his wife’s minivan bedecked with them for a mechanic appointment. (One of her stickers: “Want to see God? Keep texting while you drive.”)
Remember Chuck Johnston’s Jeep? It’s the only vehicle in the Johnston household to get such treatment. The three other vehicles they own are sticker-free.
“(The Jeep) is kind of my emergency vehicle. So basically it just sits in the basement and collects bumper stickers,” Johnston said.
Johnston said he sees others push political agendas on their bumpers. But he aims for laughs.
“Trust Me, I’m a Doctor.”
“Caution! Driver not wearing underwear.”
“Grateful I’m Not Dead.”
“Please Don’t Hit Me.”
“I always read bumper stickers. You can tell a lot about people with bumper stickers. It says a lot about me. But I keep it funny,” Johnston said. “You can’t take it serious.”
Have a question? Email me at streetsmarts@heraldnet.com. Please include your first and last name and city of residence. Look for updates on our Street Smarts blog at www.heraldnet.com/streetsmarts.
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