Can Your Stick Family Car Decal Endanger You?

We've all seen them. Decals, generally on minivans, showing stick figures representing family members. Or sometimes representing parodies of family members. Or a T Rex snacking on family members . . . Some people like them, some are annoyed, most probably don't care one way or the other. But do pedophiles care? Will the decal draw the criminal element to your family? Some people believe so. Even a few police departments are warning about having these decals on your vehicle. However, there is one little issue. There are no cases cited where a perpetrator gleaned personal information from stick figures and used it to commit a crime. As a self-defense instructor, I have a short list of "rules" I check before giving safety recommendations to students. Rule is that any piece of safety advice has to be based on evidence. There has to be some proof that this reduces violence in the real world, not just as a hypothetical in the world between someone's ears. No matter how logical or reasonable it may seem, if it does not exist in reality it does not get forwarded. This suggestion that stick figure family decals can attract bad guys fails to meet that standard. This piece of advice also ignores the substantiated fact that most predators who go after children are people already known to the family and do not need any decals to inform them. You're better off learning how to assess the real people in your children's lives.

You can listen to Can Your Stick Family Car Decal Endanger You? online on Radio and Podcast. Open the player on this page to stream the available audio.

Can Your Stick Family Car Decal Endanger You? is an episode from Safety in Seattle News by Joanne Factor of Strategic Living.

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This episode was published on Jun 6, 2014.

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