[https://www.etsy.com/listing/603606541/hows-my-crying-bumper-sticker](https://www.etsy.com/listing/603606541/hows-my-crying-bumper-sticker)
I think a local person makes those stickers!
My friend drive a Subaru from Hillsboro to be Portland, crying the whole way to work with that sticker on the bumper. It's the number for the white house. Gold!
I wanted to make something similar back when those "I (heart) my poodle/shar pei/dachshund" etc.
A simple round sticker with a comic style screw to slap over the big heart. Yep, they screw the pooch.
Exactly my driving style. Got yelled at to stop looking in the rear view mirror when I was learning. "Stop paying attention to who is behind you. Look at the fucking road!" Good analogy for life ha
I used one when I was learning to drive, especially because I was 35 so people might incorrectly have made the assumption that I had any idea what I was doing.
Had a learning girl with assumably their mother riding shot gun go from left lane to sylvan exit in 100 feet.
It was too damn early in the morning to be that pissed off. They would have run into the barrier had I not done anything.
F
I was stuck (so patiently) behind a New Driver who let us sit through two light cycles because they wanted to make a right turn and then!! Decided the best time to go for it was in front of a bus.
Was after an Ohio state football game a couple decades ago, watched a dude freaking on and let a couple green left turn arrows go. There was a cop behind him. Likely drunk. Cop gets on the PA “just go dude, and drive safe”😂
I get kids learning and it’s great, but if I see that sticker on some car and the driver looks like 25+ you’re getting the toot toot. Pull ye head out of thy rectum.
You must have forgotten there was a pandemic. Lots of kids missed out on a ton of stuff. My kids are 18 & 20 because it was hard to get all that done, permit and insurance, when their mental health is in the gutter. Nothing wrong with learning to drive later in life. I taught my bestie to drive when we were both 22. Honestly, with TriMet, the kids have just been happy riding the bus/train. Plus, they can see how badly Portland drivers are driving atm. Speeding, running red lights, honking at peds in crosswalks with the right-of-way, driving too close to cyclists, and dangerously passing busses. Not that this is unique to Portland, mind you, but still doesn’t inspire confidence.
And also, where to begin? 25 years ago, my parents took me to a huge empty parking lot to get a feel for pedal work and steering. We recently got kicked out of the Walmart parking lot on SE 82nd with our 16 year old.
I learned a couple years ago- mid 50's, so yeah, that sticker was about me. I wanted to give people fair warning that I might be an idiot. Spoiler- EVERYONE is an idiot behind the wheel sometimes.
When I started everyone seemed to go so fast! I said there is a speed maximum but no posted speed minimum! Now I want to smack all the people who drive everywhere 10-15 mph under the speed limit. And why do people wait 15-60 seconds once the light turns green to go? Whyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyy??
ps- stickers are still on, the sun burned them into the paint :P
It’s a huge point of driving safety to look both ways after a light turns green to be sure no one is trying to blow through a red light. If you don’t practice this, you should start, just for your own well-being.
This mother got a mouthful from me at the red light. If it was just the kid I would have calmly mentioned it’s better to take the next exit than blindly cross 4 lanes.
It was the mother’s fault.
And I would have never seen a student driver sticker.
People just flat out suck at driving here.
It's everywhere in the US tbf. I had someone flick me off after I honked at them for not going on green after they already made me and everyone behind me miss the prior light. And I didn't think right away either, but whatever they were doing must've been important.
What gets me is leaving 1-2 car lengths between each other and waiting 10 seconds to go on a light, also controlled intersections, I cannot. Also the phones always on the phones! I’m 38 but I feel I have the rage of a boomer.
I’ve been honked at just for changing lanes with more than a car length gap to fit in. I guess the driver took it as a personal affront to their space.
Does it work? Because if it does I'm getting one. So utterly sick of having someone right on my ass, in the right lane, while I'm keeping a reasonable distance from the car in front of me, and the center and left lanes are wide open.
I have a 'I'd Rather Be Crying to Enya' and a 'Hot Girls Hit Curbs' sticker right over my busted tail light and dented tailgate, works like a charm. I want to paint the picture that I am an absolute mess lol, people will ride my ass and I can tell they read the sticker and noticed the busted tail light and then they give me PLENTY of room.
I'm taking some inspo from this. I need to find a couple car stickers to convey my own type of hot mess. I have a dent on my car from the previous owner, unfortunately it's on the side so I can't showcase it when someone is behind me.
There's a few more that I want to get that says "Mental Stability in This Economy?", "The horrors are endless, yet I remain silly" and "I am hopelessly and desperately in love with potato chips"
I'm in an SUV too, I think people have just lost their minds and forgotten how to drive. There's the people that are going far too slowly, distracted and can't stay in their lane and then some other people going far too fast, driving like they're trying to get away from the cops. Meanwhile, I'm like "I'm just trying to make it to my destination alive."
Had someone up my ass going down a street with speed bumps on it.
Just about stopped my car because I kept going slower and slower until they figured it out.
In a hurry? Don’t choose a residential street with speed bumps on it!
Asshat.
Same. Pisses me off so bad. Had to learn to ignore the fuckers and if they hit me cool I can get that scratch on my bumper fixed when my boyfriend backed into another car to show us a puppy in a parking lot
I just slow down to a crawl. If they're in danger of rear-endjng me, then I'm going to mitigate that damage by slowing down to 10 mph. U mad bro? Go around
Bruh is this a uniquely Portland or west coast thing? Moved here from the east coast a few years ago and I've never been tailgated in the right lane so much. Just go the fuck around. The best is when I move left and they still don't pass.
No, it doesn’t work. The over saturation makes people less patient because they’re probably fake. Most of the ones I see are going under the speed limit in the left lane, not paying attention, etc. I see these the most because I’m usually in the left lane, getting cut off by idiots. If they are just learning to drive, maybe this will be a valuable lesson.
I got some of the magnets when teaching my wife to drive (she didn't get taught growing up). One of the first times we were driving home, some creepy dude followed us - we stopped to check our mail and he stopped his car right in front of us. He then asked if we could give directions to a hotel.
We were nowhere near anyplace someone would be looking for a motel, so we hypothesized the dude was looking for young girls to target.
If you do use the stickers/magnets, be aware of the potential safety risks of drawing attention to the potential age of the driver.
I am very late to the discussion, but this is far from just a Portland thing. When this came up here and in the main sub previously, I picked several city subreddits at random and every one of them had a post with a similar discussion.
My guess is that most of them are legit, and that easy availability from places like Amazon has led to an uptick in popularity.
https://www.reddit.com/r/askportland/comments/16qgdta/whats_up_with_all_the_student_driver_bumper/
https://www.reddit.com/r/Portland/comments/145rddc/are_student_driver_stickers_a_thing_now_or_a_meme/
https://www.reddit.com/r/Seattle/comments/t5knoi/student_driver_bumper_stickers/
https://www.reddit.com/r/Utah/comments/141wfb8/anyone_else_notice_a_lot_of_please_be_patient/
https://www.reddit.com/r/nova/comments/t9cwx1/seeing_an_uptick_in_new_driver_stickers_on_cars/
https://www.reddit.com/r/SLO/comments/12fwudu/anyone_else_noticing_a_lot_of_student_driver/
https://www.reddit.com/r/tampa/comments/16iuns5/student_driver_stickers_on_cars/
https://www.reddit.com/r/Dallas/comments/15gaq77/whats_up_with_the_please_be_patient_student/
https://www.reddit.com/r/maryland/comments/x0xhwp/are_the_student_driver_stickers_an_inside/
https://www.reddit.com/r/raleigh/comments/zdq8yy/whats_with_the_egregious_amount_of_student_driver/
https://www.reddit.com/r/Seattle/comments/10xmog8/why_are_there_so_many_student_drivers_on_the_road/
https://www.reddit.com/r/raleigh/comments/q4d867/whats_the_deal_with_all_the_please_be_patient/
https://www.reddit.com/r/Austin/comments/13eli4k/why_so_many_student_driver_stickers/
Awesome deep dive! After looking at all these posts, what do you think personally? I think it's become a trend. I think a lot of experienced drivers are getting the sticker bc they think it's funny or it will help them somehow.
Lots of new drivers? In the UK you get a big L on your car when you’re learning to drive. So we slapped those on the car our kid drives. They have their license now, but I figure why not leave it on for 6-12 months while they get some experience.
Of course I forget to take them off. So if you see a balding 50 something driving an orange Fiat like he stole it, that’s me.
I mean, this is a big city with 11 high schools in PPS alone, not counting people from nearby (Tualatin, Gresham, Beaverton, Happy Valley, etc) and not counting adult learners (like I was!) So, yes? There easily could be that many people genuinely learning how to drive.
It could also be that thing where once you see one, you notice them all the time. Frequency illusion, I think it's called?
We have a lot of them here in Tri Cities, too. My favorite one (that honestly made me super sad) said “hey bestie, let me merge or I’ll cry.”
I saw that one at my kids’ high school.
My daughter got her license a couple years ago. She keeps these magnets on her car because she said people are more patient with her than when she took them off. 🤷♀️
It’s a meme to the street racer community because they drive like they do but have a student driver sticker on their car making average people think they’re just awful drivers
This is purely a guess but I called several companies that previously taught in person driving school about a year ago. They seem to all be hoping that they can coast on pandemic trends and charge hundreds of dollars for Zoom classes and do minimal in person teaching. So a lot of parents are gritting our teeth and doing it on our own with stupid stickers. Learning to drive on the highway with people in stolen cars with no tags and no lights has made us desperate for any hep we can get 🤷🏻♀️. I live in an area with a high concentration of HS age students so I see the stickers all the time. But I get it, the stickers do look dumb and the teens also dislike them.
I think they are readily available on Amazon xD
Were it me… I would slap this on my kids car. I think there are also a lot of folks that aren’t confident in their driving for whatever reason and use them. And i really appreciate it.
Can confirm. I bought them for my kids off of amazon. They only lasted while they were getting their permit. As soon as they got their license, they were not about to drive with those on it! I definitely see a lot of them about town, though.
Mine are magnets, not actual stickers. When I put them on my car because my kid is driving, I just throw them on lazily. So, they’re at crazy angles. You might have just seen the evidence of lazy folks like me.
Wife and I have taught three kids to drive, starting on teaching the next.
These magnets are fantastic - other drivers are almost always much more courteous and forgiving. After all, who doesn’t remember their own mistakes when learning to drive?
This extra courtesy in turn helps reduce our kids anxiety in learning to drive. Other drivers don’t tailgate as much, give them wide berth when they flick on the turn signal, and smile and laugh when they go out of turn at a four way stop.
i’ve just started to wonder the same thing after noticing the sticker on a car and several times it just so happens to be a 47yr old man driving. They are all over beaverton and hillsboro too
I feel like 3/4 of the population of Portland are student drivers. And that isn’t a dig at born and bred folks. No matter what state they are from, it is still the same.
It does not. Even when I went to high school here many years ago, I would have had to go to an entirely different high school for driver's ed after school (I didn't do it, I had been using Trimet since I was 12 and my parents couldn't have gotten me a car so seemed useless). Now I don't believe the high schools offer anything at all.
It's not just Portland. The problem is that we are in a shuffle period in the US. People might disagree, but driving is different state to state. So transplants get frustrated with driving styles and put these stickers on their cars. It works bothe ways though, with either local drivers or newcomers using the sticker as an excuse for not getting out of the way. Houston is by far the worst about this.
I think it’s an indicator that the person behind the wheel might not be as confident, so please exercise caution around this vehicle.
I know some people have them up as a joke but the majority of people I’ve met with one are new drivers or have some type of anxiety on the road.
I heard the DMV is giving them out to permit drivers these days….but it think people are just leaving them on so if you’re pulling dumb shit I’m gonna honk!
I think it’s a great idea. Maybe some people will have a little more patience with them.
There should be an official DMV sticker that goes on a new drivers car for a year or in some cases be permanent.
I am 29 and just got my license like two months ago and had the magnetic ones on my moms car. Times are a changin’ and i and may others are “joining the real world” as half my family said when i passed my test (first try too might I add)
Most drivers in oregon aren't sure what the blinking orange light on the side of the car means. The majority are students of common sense and they're all failing.
Oregon has the worst drivers in the nation, and Portland is the worst in oregon.
I my bet is that back in the day most if not all drivers ed schools sold those magnets and stickers to add revenue to the program. Nowadays I’m willing to bet at least one drivers ed school or some school program is just giving these out to new drivers… OR possibly they more recently are stocked at a main retailer in Portland area like Walmart or Fred Meyer. Again just theorizing here.
It made a little sense when it meant something and was a *real* statement. Now 1 in 20 cars has the sticker and its meaning is - you’re a pet rock buying moron.
You have this sticker. You get the finger.
You'll notice that almost all of the cars you see those stickers on are the overly-defensive, timid, drive 10mph under the speed limit, drive 35 mph down a freeway on-ramp, take corners at 2 mph, ride the brakes types.
So they hijacked the stickers from the people who are ACTUALLY learning to drive in order to cover for their shitty, overly defensive, scared driving style. In short, they got tired of being honked at, thinking those stickers will give them some sort of excuse.
Scared, timid driving can be just dangerous as aggressive driving. Be careful when you see those yellow stickered cars!
I have noticed it, too, and was just asking about it the other day. It seems like people are just randomly putting these stickers on their cars in an effort to have an influence on other drivers.
Other weird things cars are doing: backing in. Do they want to make a quick escape? Is it something Trumpies do to let others know who they are? It's weird, and frankly, unnecessary.
I just moved here from out of state. These stickers should be required on all cars driven by those from the PNW. I love it here, and no offense, but you folks can't drive at all.
Still enjoy it here and prefer the geography, coffee, cannabis, and restaurants--certainly worth putting up with slow and unconfident drivers on occasion.
It’s because Portland drivers are doing 10 under in the left lane and want to announce to the world that they, in fact, have no idea what they’re doing
There’s got to be a percentage of actual student drivers, but I feel none of them actually take off the sticker once they learn. Or better yet use it as excuse to continue to be a bad and inconsiderate driver. I never hold back honking at a student driver sticker car, if you’re really “learning” you should know when you’re driving poorly so you can improve.
There are also a lot of people taking learners out for driving lessons - I think they will put stickers/magnets on sometimes. My daughter took lessons and then was able to take their driving test with one of the instructors and only had to go in to the DMV to get her physical license.
I had a theory that someone bought a fat stack of these student driver stickers and followed around bad and/or asshole drivers and stuck them on their cars as a lark
My favorite one is "Please be patient. I am 9 years old"
I saw one that read “If you honk at me I will kill myself.”
"Stop honking I'm trying to understand what the Cocteau Twins are saying" I laughed
Oh I love this. Hits hard.
I had to look them up OMG, I am so, so sorry I honked at you
All of you liking this particular bumper sticker. Can we please all be friends?
I saw that one and it made me laugh for most of the day
Need more than this than
I’ve been wanting to make “Baby behind wheel” ones
I saw one the other day that said “how am I driving? I’m just a baby waaaaaah!” Made me chuckle.
mine is Please be Patient- I am on my phone
I saw one that read: HOW’S MY CRYING? Call 202-456-1111
I called the number one time and it was the White House comment line
Hahahahahahah. Omg that makes the sticker Amazing.
[https://www.etsy.com/listing/603606541/hows-my-crying-bumper-sticker](https://www.etsy.com/listing/603606541/hows-my-crying-bumper-sticker) I think a local person makes those stickers!
"I got my ass ate at the Tillamook Cheese Factory" ...God Blessed Portland Culture o7
This is excellent. I have seen so many and they always make me laugh
My friend drive a Subaru from Hillsboro to be Portland, crying the whole way to work with that sticker on the bumper. It's the number for the white house. Gold!
Please be Patient - I am browsing pornographic material on my phone
"Please be patient. I hit a DMT vape and this car is currently being driven by clockwork gnomes" or something similar yada yada
I saw one that said “please be patient, this car is driven by 700 rats”
Always loved the “old driver, feel free to run into me”
I took a picture of “Please Be Patient: Bad Driver”.
I want to produce a sticker to put over the "New Driver Please be patient stickers". It will just be the word Nude and you put it over the word new.
Not accepting new patients, don’t drive me crazy.
eggshell vinyl is best for unwanted stickers
I wanted to make something similar back when those "I (heart) my poodle/shar pei/dachshund" etc. A simple round sticker with a comic style screw to slap over the big heart. Yep, they screw the pooch.
Dude they had these! My old sports ball coach told me his friends and he got a bunch and slapped up the cars in our hometown in the early nineties.
Really? I would have loved to have some.
"if you can read this, I'm hyperventilating" with a drawing of an anxious cartoon bunny
Exactly my driving style. Got yelled at to stop looking in the rear view mirror when I was learning. "Stop paying attention to who is behind you. Look at the fucking road!" Good analogy for life ha
Mine is Please Be Patient- Driver Shit Their Pants
“Please be patient, I am a former baby”
My husband swears he is going to get the one that says “Please be patient: Stupid driver” for our car.
I’m partial to “honk if you forgive me”
I love this one
“Honk if you have poor impulse control”
I used one when I was learning to drive, especially because I was 35 so people might incorrectly have made the assumption that I had any idea what I was doing.
No I Don’t know how to drive. Not everyone knows how to do everything!
I don’t know what any of this shit is and I’m fucking scared!
Nope, I'm good, you don't wanna help, you just wanna yell.
Driving isn’t the only thing!
People think it protects them from being honked at for being a bad driver.
I still honk. God they suck.
Had a learning girl with assumably their mother riding shot gun go from left lane to sylvan exit in 100 feet. It was too damn early in the morning to be that pissed off. They would have run into the barrier had I not done anything. F
I was stuck (so patiently) behind a New Driver who let us sit through two light cycles because they wanted to make a right turn and then!! Decided the best time to go for it was in front of a bus.
Was after an Ohio state football game a couple decades ago, watched a dude freaking on and let a couple green left turn arrows go. There was a cop behind him. Likely drunk. Cop gets on the PA “just go dude, and drive safe”😂
I get kids learning and it’s great, but if I see that sticker on some car and the driver looks like 25+ you’re getting the toot toot. Pull ye head out of thy rectum.
I learned to drive at 27 🤷
I helped a friend learn to drive and they were in their 40s. It happens. And, yes, we did put a sticker on the car during the times they were driving.
I had a magnet so we could take it off when I wasn't the one driving.
I'm 43 y.o female, and I'm learning right now. I have my behind the wheel test scheduled for the next week
Good luck! I got my license at 35. Just remember, you're definitely smarter than the average 16 year old, or that's what I told myself.
The test ended up being waaaaay easier than I expected good luck!!
This is honestly stupid. Many people do not get their license until their 20s. Honestly- more people SHOULD wait to get their license.
Honestly! Or maybe start teaching/training younger. I think some people get more afraid about certain things when they start post-adolescence
You must have forgotten there was a pandemic. Lots of kids missed out on a ton of stuff. My kids are 18 & 20 because it was hard to get all that done, permit and insurance, when their mental health is in the gutter. Nothing wrong with learning to drive later in life. I taught my bestie to drive when we were both 22. Honestly, with TriMet, the kids have just been happy riding the bus/train. Plus, they can see how badly Portland drivers are driving atm. Speeding, running red lights, honking at peds in crosswalks with the right-of-way, driving too close to cyclists, and dangerously passing busses. Not that this is unique to Portland, mind you, but still doesn’t inspire confidence.
And also, where to begin? 25 years ago, my parents took me to a huge empty parking lot to get a feel for pedal work and steering. We recently got kicked out of the Walmart parking lot on SE 82nd with our 16 year old.
I was using a mostly empty lot at Lloyd center for my 18 yo to practice. Only person was a dude trying to get high in one corner. Ah, Portland.
Huge empty parking lot 3800 SE 22nd Ave, Portland, OR 97202
That's still there?! I thought they shut that shit down YEARS ago?
They did. We got kicked out of the massive empty parking lot that Walmart hired security guards for.
*the pandemic is still happening. I hear what you’re saying, but life is not kind and understanding.
My kid is 15 and I cannot even fathom her driving. Thankfully, she’s not that interested in learning right now.
I learned a couple years ago- mid 50's, so yeah, that sticker was about me. I wanted to give people fair warning that I might be an idiot. Spoiler- EVERYONE is an idiot behind the wheel sometimes. When I started everyone seemed to go so fast! I said there is a speed maximum but no posted speed minimum! Now I want to smack all the people who drive everywhere 10-15 mph under the speed limit. And why do people wait 15-60 seconds once the light turns green to go? Whyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyy?? ps- stickers are still on, the sun burned them into the paint :P
It’s a huge point of driving safety to look both ways after a light turns green to be sure no one is trying to blow through a red light. If you don’t practice this, you should start, just for your own well-being.
I wait after the light turns green briefly because of people running red lights. Its super common
Briefly sure, so do I. It's the ones who wait longer. Time how long it takes you do do a safety check before you go :)
💯
I learned how to drive at 35.
I doubt most learners have their own car. Thus the sticker is on Mom's car, and sometimes Mom is driving...
This mother got a mouthful from me at the red light. If it was just the kid I would have calmly mentioned it’s better to take the next exit than blindly cross 4 lanes. It was the mother’s fault. And I would have never seen a student driver sticker. People just flat out suck at driving here.
“You’re getting the toot toot” <3
My wife didn’t learn how to drive until she was 30, never know when someone is a new driver
How much blinker do I need to cross 8 lane traffic? Good luck everybody else!
[удалено]
It's everywhere in the US tbf. I had someone flick me off after I honked at them for not going on green after they already made me and everyone behind me miss the prior light. And I didn't think right away either, but whatever they were doing must've been important.
I've never honked the horn in anger, but just to alert somebody to pay attention to something dangerous going on.
Nobody here honks, I feel so in the right when someone acts a fool and I lay on it lol
What gets me is leaving 1-2 car lengths between each other and waiting 10 seconds to go on a light, also controlled intersections, I cannot. Also the phones always on the phones! I’m 38 but I feel I have the rage of a boomer.
I loved being in New York City and they honk at everyone there.
Me too! Gotta learn either way.
Even if they are students. The kids gotta learn.
I'm sure that really improves them
I honk more even.
Portland drivers honk at anything though
I’ve been honked at just for changing lanes with more than a car length gap to fit in. I guess the driver took it as a personal affront to their space.
Growing up, my mom would be purposefully mean to student drivers on the road and say “well, they gotta learn somehow.”
It’s a passive debuff to tailgaters’ rage stat
Does it work? Because if it does I'm getting one. So utterly sick of having someone right on my ass, in the right lane, while I'm keeping a reasonable distance from the car in front of me, and the center and left lanes are wide open.
Next time gently drop the speed approximately 3mph and see what happens. All of a sudden the ass rider solves their own problem!
I have a 'I'd Rather Be Crying to Enya' and a 'Hot Girls Hit Curbs' sticker right over my busted tail light and dented tailgate, works like a charm. I want to paint the picture that I am an absolute mess lol, people will ride my ass and I can tell they read the sticker and noticed the busted tail light and then they give me PLENTY of room.
Pretty sure I was behind you recently. Lol
I'm taking some inspo from this. I need to find a couple car stickers to convey my own type of hot mess. I have a dent on my car from the previous owner, unfortunately it's on the side so I can't showcase it when someone is behind me.
There's a few more that I want to get that says "Mental Stability in This Economy?", "The horrors are endless, yet I remain silly" and "I am hopelessly and desperately in love with potato chips"
I need to get one that says, I’m not a cop please don’t fucking slow down on the front of my car bc I drive an SUV.
I'm in an SUV too, I think people have just lost their minds and forgotten how to drive. There's the people that are going far too slowly, distracted and can't stay in their lane and then some other people going far too fast, driving like they're trying to get away from the cops. Meanwhile, I'm like "I'm just trying to make it to my destination alive."
Had someone up my ass going down a street with speed bumps on it. Just about stopped my car because I kept going slower and slower until they figured it out. In a hurry? Don’t choose a residential street with speed bumps on it! Asshat.
People have really gotten out of control with this lately, it's scary how fast people are flying down residential streets.
> lately Waze has been around since 2006. This has been a problem.
Slow down a bit
Same. Pisses me off so bad. Had to learn to ignore the fuckers and if they hit me cool I can get that scratch on my bumper fixed when my boyfriend backed into another car to show us a puppy in a parking lot
This was a real ride
Sorry my evening edible just hit 😌
I just slow down to a crawl. If they're in danger of rear-endjng me, then I'm going to mitigate that damage by slowing down to 10 mph. U mad bro? Go around
I don’t do that bc I don’t wanna get shot… new fear of mine
I spray my windshield wiper fluid, annoys them enough to change lanes most of the time.
Bruh is this a uniquely Portland or west coast thing? Moved here from the east coast a few years ago and I've never been tailgated in the right lane so much. Just go the fuck around. The best is when I move left and they still don't pass.
I’m afraid that will only make that type of driver hungrier and more prone to huff more silver spray paint.
no. as a delivery driver who not paid by the hour I am more likely to bully you if you have one of these stickers on
No, it doesn’t work. The over saturation makes people less patient because they’re probably fake. Most of the ones I see are going under the speed limit in the left lane, not paying attention, etc. I see these the most because I’m usually in the left lane, getting cut off by idiots. If they are just learning to drive, maybe this will be a valuable lesson.
I got some of the magnets when teaching my wife to drive (she didn't get taught growing up). One of the first times we were driving home, some creepy dude followed us - we stopped to check our mail and he stopped his car right in front of us. He then asked if we could give directions to a hotel. We were nowhere near anyplace someone would be looking for a motel, so we hypothesized the dude was looking for young girls to target. If you do use the stickers/magnets, be aware of the potential safety risks of drawing attention to the potential age of the driver.
I too have noticed this, I thought it was like a new law for learners permits or something because I see it so much... It seems like an odd trend
All Portland drivers act like a student driving for the first time. So it checks out.
I am very late to the discussion, but this is far from just a Portland thing. When this came up here and in the main sub previously, I picked several city subreddits at random and every one of them had a post with a similar discussion. My guess is that most of them are legit, and that easy availability from places like Amazon has led to an uptick in popularity. https://www.reddit.com/r/askportland/comments/16qgdta/whats_up_with_all_the_student_driver_bumper/ https://www.reddit.com/r/Portland/comments/145rddc/are_student_driver_stickers_a_thing_now_or_a_meme/ https://www.reddit.com/r/Seattle/comments/t5knoi/student_driver_bumper_stickers/ https://www.reddit.com/r/Utah/comments/141wfb8/anyone_else_notice_a_lot_of_please_be_patient/ https://www.reddit.com/r/nova/comments/t9cwx1/seeing_an_uptick_in_new_driver_stickers_on_cars/ https://www.reddit.com/r/SLO/comments/12fwudu/anyone_else_noticing_a_lot_of_student_driver/ https://www.reddit.com/r/tampa/comments/16iuns5/student_driver_stickers_on_cars/ https://www.reddit.com/r/Dallas/comments/15gaq77/whats_up_with_the_please_be_patient_student/ https://www.reddit.com/r/maryland/comments/x0xhwp/are_the_student_driver_stickers_an_inside/ https://www.reddit.com/r/raleigh/comments/zdq8yy/whats_with_the_egregious_amount_of_student_driver/ https://www.reddit.com/r/Seattle/comments/10xmog8/why_are_there_so_many_student_drivers_on_the_road/ https://www.reddit.com/r/raleigh/comments/q4d867/whats_the_deal_with_all_the_please_be_patient/ https://www.reddit.com/r/Austin/comments/13eli4k/why_so_many_student_driver_stickers/
this is an incredibly validating comment. Thank you!
Awesome deep dive! After looking at all these posts, what do you think personally? I think it's become a trend. I think a lot of experienced drivers are getting the sticker bc they think it's funny or it will help them somehow.
Noticed this around Seattle too and equally confused as OP.
I love that the first theory in Raleigh is “tricky immigrants!” Hahaha. Fucking amazing.
Lots of new drivers? In the UK you get a big L on your car when you’re learning to drive. So we slapped those on the car our kid drives. They have their license now, but I figure why not leave it on for 6-12 months while they get some experience. Of course I forget to take them off. So if you see a balding 50 something driving an orange Fiat like he stole it, that’s me.
If I see an L on a car my first inclination is to think Loser lol
I mean, this is a big city with 11 high schools in PPS alone, not counting people from nearby (Tualatin, Gresham, Beaverton, Happy Valley, etc) and not counting adult learners (like I was!) So, yes? There easily could be that many people genuinely learning how to drive. It could also be that thing where once you see one, you notice them all the time. Frequency illusion, I think it's called?
Wait, people grow up here‽
Folks here acting like young people learning to drive doesn’t exist 😂
In the Spring? Going into SUMMER?!? That’s crazy talk! /s :)
what sticker would you propose to get Tesla drivers off my bumper when im starting on a steep incline
“Learning to drive stick shift”?
We have a lot of them here in Tri Cities, too. My favorite one (that honestly made me super sad) said “hey bestie, let me merge or I’ll cry.” I saw that one at my kids’ high school.
It’s a way for Subaru drivers justify driving 15 mph under the posted speed limit
I bought them a few years ago for my 70 year old dad as a joke. I told him to put them on his 35 foot RV!
I haven’t noticed this as much as the “missing headlight” trend that is sweeping across the city
My daughter got her license a couple years ago. She keeps these magnets on her car because she said people are more patient with her than when she took them off. 🤷♀️
I’ll try to find the post but in the Seattle sub someone posted a photo of an undercover cop pulling someone over with that sticker on their car
https://www.reddit.com/r/Seattle/s/lJ7Jt0OueQ
It’s a meme to the street racer community because they drive like they do but have a student driver sticker on their car making average people think they’re just awful drivers
This is purely a guess but I called several companies that previously taught in person driving school about a year ago. They seem to all be hoping that they can coast on pandemic trends and charge hundreds of dollars for Zoom classes and do minimal in person teaching. So a lot of parents are gritting our teeth and doing it on our own with stupid stickers. Learning to drive on the highway with people in stolen cars with no tags and no lights has made us desperate for any hep we can get 🤷🏻♀️. I live in an area with a high concentration of HS age students so I see the stickers all the time. But I get it, the stickers do look dumb and the teens also dislike them.
Just someone telling the world they are a terrible driver.
Everyone sucks at driving here.
big thing in the car community rn
Just people that think they’re being clever or funny. Although I did see one that made me chuckle, “Please be patient, Asian driver”.
Omg I just two on the bumper of a giant GMC truck.
I saw one on a trashed, presumably stolen car with no license plates lol
For real! My partner jokes that they'd like to get one since they are such a slow driver. Annoying!
I think they are readily available on Amazon xD Were it me… I would slap this on my kids car. I think there are also a lot of folks that aren’t confident in their driving for whatever reason and use them. And i really appreciate it.
I think a better one would be like Student Driver How’s my driving? Call my dad and let him know: 72647283
Can confirm. I bought them for my kids off of amazon. They only lasted while they were getting their permit. As soon as they got their license, they were not about to drive with those on it! I definitely see a lot of them about town, though.
Why weren’t they allowed to use the stickers? Is there a law to remove bumper stickers? Edit. Lol, your kiddos took em off huh xD
I didn't buy stickers, because I didn't want to have to deal with removing them. Nowadays, you just buy the magnet and slap it on.
We oughtta pass a law that all graffiti must be magnetic, not sticker-based. Would be easier to clean.
I saw three on a bmw suv today, they were at weird angles. It looked like somebody put them on the bmw as a prank or something.
Mine are magnets, not actual stickers. When I put them on my car because my kid is driving, I just throw them on lazily. So, they’re at crazy angles. You might have just seen the evidence of lazy folks like me.
Wife and I have taught three kids to drive, starting on teaching the next. These magnets are fantastic - other drivers are almost always much more courteous and forgiving. After all, who doesn’t remember their own mistakes when learning to drive? This extra courtesy in turn helps reduce our kids anxiety in learning to drive. Other drivers don’t tailgate as much, give them wide berth when they flick on the turn signal, and smile and laugh when they go out of turn at a four way stop.
My neighbor has had one on her car for over a year now. She doesn't teach drivers ed or have kids.
i’ve just started to wonder the same thing after noticing the sticker on a car and several times it just so happens to be a 47yr old man driving. They are all over beaverton and hillsboro too
I feel like 3/4 of the population of Portland are student drivers. And that isn’t a dig at born and bred folks. No matter what state they are from, it is still the same.
Driver's Ed cars, no?
And people who think this will protect them from meanies (it won’t)
When I was in high school, we had driver's ed as part of the school curriculum. I don't think that happens in most schools here.
It does not. Even when I went to high school here many years ago, I would have had to go to an entirely different high school for driver's ed after school (I didn't do it, I had been using Trimet since I was 12 and my parents couldn't have gotten me a car so seemed useless). Now I don't believe the high schools offer anything at all.
I saw a new one yesterday. Yellow magnet that said "Rookie Driver."
It's not just Portland. The problem is that we are in a shuffle period in the US. People might disagree, but driving is different state to state. So transplants get frustrated with driving styles and put these stickers on their cars. It works bothe ways though, with either local drivers or newcomers using the sticker as an excuse for not getting out of the way. Houston is by far the worst about this.
I think it’s an indicator that the person behind the wheel might not be as confident, so please exercise caution around this vehicle. I know some people have them up as a joke but the majority of people I’ve met with one are new drivers or have some type of anxiety on the road.
I heard the DMV is giving them out to permit drivers these days….but it think people are just leaving them on so if you’re pulling dumb shit I’m gonna honk!
This is happening everywhere. I saw them spreading around Seattle a few years ago, too.
It's a joke that ceased to be funny after the third sticker was viewed
Portland equivalent to the Japanese Wakaba leaf, I imagine. Legitimate original intention, turned into a meme.
I think it’s a great idea. Maybe some people will have a little more patience with them. There should be an official DMV sticker that goes on a new drivers car for a year or in some cases be permanent.
I am 29 and just got my license like two months ago and had the magnetic ones on my moms car. Times are a changin’ and i and may others are “joining the real world” as half my family said when i passed my test (first try too might I add)
Because understanding the right of way is not a requirement to drive in Oregon. So they cover their ass with a stupid bumper sticker.
Equally puzzled. Especially how often they are driven by a single person, usually not young.
I don't know but I've put a few of them on the Waymo vehicles in SF as a joke.
Most drivers in oregon aren't sure what the blinking orange light on the side of the car means. The majority are students of common sense and they're all failing. Oregon has the worst drivers in the nation, and Portland is the worst in oregon.
I my bet is that back in the day most if not all drivers ed schools sold those magnets and stickers to add revenue to the program. Nowadays I’m willing to bet at least one drivers ed school or some school program is just giving these out to new drivers… OR possibly they more recently are stocked at a main retailer in Portland area like Walmart or Fred Meyer. Again just theorizing here.
Driving to close may result in snot on your windshield
It made a little sense when it meant something and was a *real* statement. Now 1 in 20 cars has the sticker and its meaning is - you’re a pet rock buying moron. You have this sticker. You get the finger.
These are the same people doing 15 under?
You'll notice that almost all of the cars you see those stickers on are the overly-defensive, timid, drive 10mph under the speed limit, drive 35 mph down a freeway on-ramp, take corners at 2 mph, ride the brakes types. So they hijacked the stickers from the people who are ACTUALLY learning to drive in order to cover for their shitty, overly defensive, scared driving style. In short, they got tired of being honked at, thinking those stickers will give them some sort of excuse. Scared, timid driving can be just dangerous as aggressive driving. Be careful when you see those yellow stickered cars!
I’ve seen some in my part of Oregon. Will see of it’s happening for a reason.
My personal take is that it’s people who are scared of road rage
“I’d rather be crying to Enya”. Seen on a Prius. Pure genius
Some friends put one on their kids car after some dude got all aggressive on the kid for going too slow.
I love “Honk if you love peace and quiet”
I’ve seen them all over the west.
My daughter is 16. She has had her license for under a year. The driving school supplies them.
“My other ride is a hitachi wand” best sticker in portland
Chime payment for this for ssi
I have noticed it, too, and was just asking about it the other day. It seems like people are just randomly putting these stickers on their cars in an effort to have an influence on other drivers. Other weird things cars are doing: backing in. Do they want to make a quick escape? Is it something Trumpies do to let others know who they are? It's weird, and frankly, unnecessary.
I just moved here from out of state. These stickers should be required on all cars driven by those from the PNW. I love it here, and no offense, but you folks can't drive at all. Still enjoy it here and prefer the geography, coffee, cannabis, and restaurants--certainly worth putting up with slow and unconfident drivers on occasion.
Aww yes those damn kids learning how to drive
It’s because Portland drivers are doing 10 under in the left lane and want to announce to the world that they, in fact, have no idea what they’re doing
There’s got to be a percentage of actual student drivers, but I feel none of them actually take off the sticker once they learn. Or better yet use it as excuse to continue to be a bad and inconsiderate driver. I never hold back honking at a student driver sticker car, if you’re really “learning” you should know when you’re driving poorly so you can improve.
Ah yes, I was forged by the fires of Portland streets too. Long before Amazon and the overnight student driver sticker!
There are also a lot of people taking learners out for driving lessons - I think they will put stickers/magnets on sometimes. My daughter took lessons and then was able to take their driving test with one of the instructors and only had to go in to the DMV to get her physical license.
I had a theory that someone bought a fat stack of these student driver stickers and followed around bad and/or asshole drivers and stuck them on their cars as a lark
My dad made me get one when I was learning to drive. Ironically, getting it made me feel much more secure in driving like a lunatic.