I was driving home from my a visit with my parents the other day and at an intersection, I came to be waiting behind a car that had more than it's fair share of bumper stickers. Under the silhouette of a steer with massive (and impressively symmetrical) horns, I read the various slogans and looked at the logos; a mix of bawdy jokes, vaguely racial and political statements and the odd show of support for an Australian country music singer who clearly knows exactly where his merch dollars are best spent.

I had several moments to ponder the discourse before me as we waited for the intersection to clear and I started thinking about what it means for us to believe so much in a subject, diatribe or cause, to want you to know exactly what it is the we stand for, that we feel compelled to embellish our vehicles with adhesive thought balloons - a kind of mobile mission statement, a clear and unflinching indicator of exactly how awesome we are.

Not long after cars were invented, they put bumper bars on them. Not long after bumper bars came along, someone invented bumper stickers.

It didn't take long for drivers to begin displays of flags and other nationalistic sentiments, particularly during WWII, and although this has yet to be proven, I believe that in 1944 the first MAGIC HAPPENS sticker was sighted on the back of Churchill's Rolls. Bumper stickers are a direct extension of the emblematic society we live in; flags and national icons, sports clubs, political affiliations, heavy metal groups and religions can all be defined by highly stylised logos, immediately identifiable in our media-soaked minds. And they've crept up too; packing up camp and heading for the warmer climes of the back window where they can be more clearly viewed.

More often than not, these stickers represent statements that we identify closely with, but would perhaps not openly speak in company. "Australia - Love It Or Leave It" is quite popular now, as is the ubiquitous Southern Cross, as the national icon continues to veer dangerously close to becoming adulterated into a full-blown fascist emblem. I have often wondered whether those drivers who choose to display the cartoon of the little kid urinating on the word "FORD" were acutely aware of the irony that right next to those in the shop was a sticker with the same cartoon kid pissing on the word "HOLDEN". We're making statements, sure, but aren’t the messages getting a little mixed up?

Unsurprisingly, drivers who exhibit their individuality through bumper stickers are more likely to be involved in acts of road rage. Colorado State University Social Psychologist William Szlemko helmed a study that found that aggressive driving is inexplicably linked to the number of stickers a person has on their car, regardless of the message portrayed. Apparently, the concept is linked to the idea of territoriality; the more individualistic the car appears, the more likely the driver is to be a rude and selfish motorist.

Perhaps for most of us, we use the pre-fabricated slogans of others because they say the sorts of things we would like you to know about us, but far more succinctly and memorable. This is exactly the same process whereby I will choose an authored quotation to make a point when I wish to make the following clear to the person unfortunate enough to have asked my opinion on some triviality; firstly, Oscar Wilde said it way better than me, way before I came along and aren't I so clever for being able to recite verbatim the clever dictum which illustrates my argument so well?

If we are, by and large, incapable of the kind of extemporaneous utterances that would catapult us to the levels of International literary renown, lauded as poets of our age, can we not settle for making statements far less profound, but still endeavour to draw a grin from even the most stern of faces? I mean, is there really anything wrong with putting a "51% Angel 49% Bitch - Don't Push It" sticker on the back of your Hyundai Excel?