Team-BHP - VIP numbers, Car stickers and other Power Projectors

I think cars are a projection of our ego. As a means of transport - any set of wheels would do - 'chalti ka nam gaadi'. OK OK .. so we want comfort, style, speed, safety, economy and all that jazz. If it's just that, then why do we hanker for VIP/Fancy numbers? Why do we need add on stickers? Society, company, organisation stickers I can understand, DOCTOR I can understand, but why stuff like, LAWYER/ARMY/DEFENCE/POLICE and the like? Why the latest craze for caste and state stickers? You know what I mean - '____is King' or 'Jai ____'. I think it is divisive - we are supposed to be one secular country!

Only reason I can think of is Ego - root cause of all problems! Road rage stems from this - I've seen drivers from big expensive cars thrash drivers of smaller cars/two wheelers in broad daylight in full public view without any objection from the passers by. We assume that the person doing the thrashing is from a superior race, and so stay out of it. India’s caste based society keeps everybody line.

The rich of today are the ‘upper-caste’ and they show their ‘superiority’ by their cars. Even among them, to show that some of them are the crème de la crème of society, they add on special numbers – fancy, VIP or what have you. And since they have paid large amounts for it they have to flaunt it - hence the bigger font! If you can’t pay for the fancy plates, the cheaper option would be to add stickers.

The very fact that we are so impressed by all these trappings as to let people get away with whatever it is that they are doing wrong, is a failing of our society. The same people who boss it out in this country are the first ones to kowtow – nay, bend over backwards - in the following of rules, when they are abroad!

I had read the thread re: Army stickers. I don’t think anybody puts a sticker to make it easier to enter an Army base/colony - for that, no end of stickers will do - a valid ID would be a must. In the majority of cases, the people who resort to use of these stickers are unauthorized persons who are most probably relatives merely piggy backing on the authority of someone else. Why would a policeman need to put a POLICE sticker? Most of the time it is a civilian motorcycle with a person in civil dress riding it.

The usage of PRESS or LAWYER or DOCTOR and such is more to impress the general public. Yes, even the doctor – if there is an accident, do you take the victim to the nearest hospital or do you wait to hail a passing Doctor? Or do they stop on their own and offer assistance only because they have a sticker?

You call it ego, I call it pride. So many of us put up Team BHP stickers on our cars. More than ego, it's to show that I'm a part of a great community of Indian petrolheads. Police, lawyers, doctors are all proud people and while I'm not someone who would put up useless stickers on my car, I can understand their desire to do so.

What's wrong in putting up "____ is King" or "____ ki jai" stickers? They're only showing their affiliation or affection for a person/group. Same with fancy numbers. I could go off on a tangent about how useless all this numerology and astrology stuff is, but to each their own. If it doesn't bother me, I do not mind it.

Bear in mind that I'm only defending the fancy stickers and not the rude behavior of some of these people. But *******s come in all colors/races/shapes/sizes and stereotyping a selected group of motorists based on their decoration preferences is wrong.

I have to agree with both points of view, to an extent. I detest those politico sidekick cars that have the entire rear windshield plastered with a picture of their supremo (with a halo to boot), and do not think there is any use of such a sticker. In fact, at times I worry that the rear vision would be impaired for the driver and could lead to a crash, especially during heavy rains, night driving and other low visibility scenarios.

To counterview that a suitably well designed sticker proclaiming affiliation to Team-BHP, or usage of a K&N filter or any such sticker that simply denotes the pride of the vehicle owner towards his ride, is just as legitimate.

I, for one, do not like stickers or fancy plates simply because they detract from the single most important object in question, my car. If I wanted to drive around on a portable billboard, I'd rent one of those. Of course, this is only my own view, won't presume to hold any authority on the legitimacy of these things.

Cheers,

If the stickers are limited to impress general public, its OK. But now a days, these stickers are there to show power, power of cheapest attitude. What is the basic reason to show that a particular human being is a government employee by painting a red strip on number plate ? Question is simple, What is the motive ? The answer is to show off power. Yesterday there were two ladies in M800 parked at the corner of 90 degree turn with red strip on number plates. When others informed her politely to move the car, she did not and showed the red strip. Nobody argued, traffic cops were not useful. We did not mess up.

What is that ?
A person drives his M800 ( around 55 year old ) into my lane because he miscalculated overtaking time. He did not back off as I was on bike. He stares at me, tell me what are his powers. I noticed a red strip on his number plate.
Now even civilians that do this so that nobody messes up with them. Bad, real bad culture shown by Indians.

Trashing anybody is not a nice thing, trust me what goes around comes around, may be in a bit different way, but it does come back. I saw a person in Safari with sirens beat some Auto-wallah. There were two youths from Safari. We got down from my friend's Zen ( old one, great car ) and beat down Safari guys, later on, from threat of media they ran away.

I agree with thread starter, its all cheap attitude due to which people come up with stickers like army, police, politician, etc. Basically they are public servants and their services are visible ( specially politicians ) by judging the road conditions.

Its all about pseudo ego. All I wonder is how long and till what extent this will go on.

Thanks Goswami! It was in fact your reply to the thread which contained a reference to better servicing of a Skoda because of superior number plates and a party sticker which led to the creation of this thread.

I read somewhere that there is no such thing as a 'superiority complex' which these people try and portray by these stickers and other additions (it even includes having an empty flag holder or a red/orange/blue light, which is switched off!). The so called 'superiority complex' is only a manifestation of a deeply rooted 'inferiority complex'.

In a lighter vein, it brings to mind an old Churchill anecdote: There was this young guy who had just come into Churchill's government. He came up to Churchill and says, 'Mr. PM, it's absolutely disgraceful, I've been stopped by the Sergeant at Arms of going into the House of Commons. I don't think they knew who I was'. And Churchill turned to him and said, 'And who were you?'

Most of the time, it is just a matter of standing up and talking firmly and equally authoritatively to these people to deflate their ego.

To illustrate, once I was driving through Salem, TN. An Ambassador comes out of a side lane, cuts in front of me and bumps off my side indicator (M800 - miniscule one on the side panel). I stop, he stops. The driver jumps out and says, 'Do you know who he is?' (Some local Panchayat guy!). My wife jumps out (she is the aggressive one in the family!) and says, 'Do you know who my husband is?' End of story. The car guy apologised and came along meekly with us to buy us a new light. (Turned out it cost only Rs 15/-. We burnt more fuel looking for an auto shop in Salem!)

Symbols can be very vague but perceived by those in the know. A long time ago I was driving down from Chandigarh to Hyderabad and passed through Jabalpur (a large deviation which took me through Khajuraho too). I had an altercation regarding parking with a scooterist. I had reversed the car without really checking and bumped his scooter in the dark, which was parked right behind the car). I stepped out of the car and since I was travelling, I had my ID chained around my neck for security with a small portion peeping out between the button hole and the front pocket. This chap's opening words were, "I know you are somebody, but I am no less - I am from the Press", pointing to his sticker on the scooter! I was impressed - by the effect of such a thing as a 5 cm section of chain!

Quote:

Originally Posted by beejay (Post 1400673)

Jimmy,

Curious, Did you work for the Indian Air Force? I can see IAF in your handle name.

You have the same in your user name, this is the same pride some people have of their profession and need to showcase the same.

Curious again, Did you have an IAF pass or sticker on your car?

Good questions beejay!

Ans 1. Yes - it is also in my 'intro'. The reason why is explained in the thread 'how did you come up with your user name' see http://www.team-bhp.com/forum/collec...ername-40.html

Ans 2. It is also the Team BHP user name by accident! When I registered, I thought the requirement was of an existing email and the user name like the Avatars and the rest could be changed. If there was a choice I would remove the IAF, not because I am not proud of my roots, but because I think it is a form of 'showing off'. I prefer to keep a low profile and be anonymous!

Ans 3. When I was in the IAF, I had an parking pass for Air HQs, but when I left it was removed. As of now I have one sticker on each car - "Coorg wild life society" thats all - no service/occupational/caste/state/religion/political/regional/club at all! In fact on the older car, I even removed the car dealer/servicing stickers. On the new one I am going to wait for the first three services to be done else they keep sticking it back.

PS. I am not from Coorg!

Quote:

Originally Posted by jimmy_iaf (Post 1400831)

During the flower show and fruit show in The Nilgiris some cars are given a VIP pass so that these cars can enter the garden. These are removed after the show. This is again for convenience and not for ego. The same way round I think the press have their cars pasted for easy access. All said and done, as you have mentioned it is wrong to misuse these facilities, yet it would be wrong calling this a bloated ego.

There is an option to change your username, if I am not mistaken. Hope to read some of your flying reviews.

The one thing I am beginning to notice the hasty generalization many people are getting to form.
When we are talking about such a topic, please remember that not everyone uses those symbols for power or status.
Heck, we have a Merc, with a VVIP number, however the VVIP number was chosen as it was considered a lucky number for my dad, who wanted to get it for the Merc as it was his dream to buy a Merc.
Many people get VVIP numbers, fancy cars not because they need to show off, but also because it is what drives them.
I know this is off topic but I just wanted to make sure that there is no hasty generalization out here.

Cheers!