It’s almost impossible for me to drive anywhere these days without seeing a ton of vehicles that have the ever trendy family car decal stickers on the back window. Although most of the cars I see with the family car decals do not include each family members name, I am concerned about the few that I have seen that do. It raises a very important matter in regards to family safety.


With all the recent reports of stalkers online, and predators trying to chat with underage kids on popular network sites like MySpace, I thought about how easy it would be for a child predator to convince a child to let down their “stranger guard” if the predator seemed to know the family members by name. For example, little Izzie (names are taken from the picture) is walking home from school when a stranger pulls up next to her. The stranger has seen the family vehicle in her driveway and has memorized all the names that appear on the family car decal, even the dog Merlin. This potential child predator could easily call little Izzie by her first name, spew off some fictitious story about how her mom, Pete and Tina, wanted him to pick her up because they were out looking for Merlin, the “lost puppy”. Yeah, a bit cliche, but think about how easy it would be. Izzie would probably suspect the man knew her family, and could quiet possibly get into his car. What sick perverted man would do something like this is beyond my knowledge, but it happens every day. Yet I still am amazed at the selfishness of parents who would put something that could potentially endanger their child’s well being.

I’m reminded of a safety video I had to watch at an old job. The video discussed such things as workplace safety, how to lift properly, how to avoid danger from angry customers, etc. One part of the video touched on a topic about walking to your vehicle at night time after work, and discussed how you should not leave something inside your vehicle, in plain sight, that could identify you, such as a piece of mail with your name on it. Then the video proceeded to show a reenactment of a man stalking a lady who was walking to her car, and called her by her first name, which tricked her into letting down her guard. You would think something like this would be common sense to the majority of people, but again, I’m shocked at the amount of drivers out there that don’t know the danger they are putting themselves and their family into. 

Wow you are so right! I have seen sooooo many cars with those type of decals too. I never even thought about it like that. The world is a scary place. If someone like you (an ordinary person) thought of a scenario like this, imagine what a stalker can come up with! I wish these people thought of the safety of their family before putting those decals on. What is the point of them anyway? 

hah! I always thought they were cute, but I never got one because of that! One of my friends said I was crazy. Turns out I'm not the only one that doesn't think it's such a brilliant idea. 

TOTALLY agree...it was only a week ago I was driving home and saw someone putting one on their car in their driveway and I said those very things to my husband...WAYYYY too many crazy people out there to know how many family members you have or if you have sons or daughters...especially the ones with names on them. I totally agree with this. 

So not to bring a TV show into this lol But On Dexter one of the serial killers used those stickers to find his prey :( I think they are cute but you gotta stay away from displaying too much info to people you dont know. That and take you kids jerseys off before you go to a store or what not if they have there names on the back 

Same goes with the proud army wive stuff. There are people out there that follow these people because they are sooo anit military and bad sh*t happens. I dont have anything on the back of our vehicles that state army, children, or occupation. I hate to be a hermet and not show my pride, but I can do that in other ways. I dont want some preditor or stalker coming to my house. 

I dont either! I had a little sticker that said Zoom-Zoom but then one car wash later it said Zoo - Zoo lol. So no stickers for me I think its a great idea to just keep it off the cars for yours and your families safety 

no stickers on my car... hubby says absolutely NO. 

I have an army sticker on the back of our car. Im not afraid of anti-army people or anything like that with it. I think if someone is going to do something it isnt going to be because of the sticker on my car. You can see helmets and extra boots and uniforms inside my car if you are looking from the outside. I can understand not putting the one with your family on it. But if someone wants to do something over having an army sticker on my car at least I know I was sshowing my pride to my husband and the rest of the military. Thats like someone being scared to have something about being a christian on their car. If I decide to put something like that on ours someday the first thing that comes to my mind isnt going to be someone following me because I have a christian sticker on my car. The 1/2 my heart is in Iraq ones and things like that are scary because then your just setting yourself up. Someone will then know that your hubby is deployed and you will be a target. But a regular army sticker or something like that... eh not a big deal. Thats like telling your husband not to ride in your car with his uniform on because your "afraid" of anti-military people