A proposed enhancement to the trend of adding “Student Driver” stickers to cars. Isn’t it weird that drivers can request MORE patience, but not less?

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Background:

A trend started in the 2020s where car owners would affix stickers to their car reading “Student Driver: Please Be Patient!” (Examples: https://www.google.com/search?q=student+driver+stickers+fad).

For some reason, the wording of these stickers is almost always identical: “Please Be Patient” or “Thanks for Your Patience.”

Proposal:

The goal of these stickers seems to be to increase the likelihood of other drivers treating the allegedly student-driven car with an increased amount of courtesy.

But strangely, there are no variants of this sticker that suggest that a car be treated with average or below-average amounts of courtesy and patience.

To remedy this gap, we suggest a couple of new options (Figure 1).

Fig. 1: The top sticker is widely seen today. The new middle sticker (“Experienced Driver”) and bottom sticker (“Ultra-Pro Driver”) will allow drivers to request that they be judged fairly (middle) or excessively harshly (bottom).

Conclusion:

These additional sticker types now allow a driver to request that they be judged with a “normal” amount of patience and goodwill, or with extreme impatience and road rage. For some reason, such stickers were not previously available!

PROS: Fills out the full spectrum of possible “patience ⟷ impatience” options.

CONS: None! Look for these stickers to make their debut on cars near you soon.

Originally published 2026-08-24.