That was a friend’s comment when she spied the new “baby on board” sign I’d innocently stuck in the back window of our people mover.

I’d adopted it as a safety measure, hoping that telling the world that there was a small, defenceless, little person on board might make tailgaters back off, hoons go and mess with someone else, and those in a rush realise that our car was never going to travel more than a bit below the speed limit.

It didn’t make that much difference. People still overtook and honked their horns aggressively and when a bus sideswiped us, I concluded that my friend was probably right. No one really pays much attention to baby-on-board signs. But they should.

When you see the words “baby on board”, it should be taken as a sign of clear and present danger. It tells other drivers that there is an exhausted mum or dad behind the wheel with a small unpredictable, unexploded bomb in the back seat. If they are nervous first-time parents well, seriously, anything could happen. So it’s in everyone’s best interest to back right off.

These days, baby-on-board signs are old hat. Many family cars sport stick-figure representations of the whole family. At a glance, you can tell mum’s a shopaholic, dad likes a barbecue and they have two or three offspring who play soccer, do ballet and maybe a baby with angel wings smiling demurely (I always assume that’s aspirational). There are also often dogs, cats, goldfish, a rabbit or guinea pig, horse or a chicken or two – hopefully, not all travelling in the car at the same time.

I find these signs very useful. I regularly have a car full of small and large distractions as I race to beat the school bell or get the kids to their various sporting or social activities or just get to work on time. So it’s good to know which other drivers may also be operating under sub-optimal conditions.

L-plates warn people that they are learners, P-plates also tell us someone is new to the road. We’re also warned of wide loads and left-hand-drive cars. So why not give fair warning to other drivers as to just what sort of family commotion and distraction is going on in the back of your car?