The Roads Scholar : Carol Gardner Finds That the Bumper Stickers of Fender Philosophers Say a Lot About Us

Swerving through traffic, Carol Gardner stalks her prey like some kind of freeway Marlin Perkins. An unsuspecting Volkswagen Beetle, isolated from the herd, lumbers up ahead.

Pulse quickening, Gardner zooms in for the kill, then abruptly calls off the pursuit.

“A Bug without a bumper sticker?” she gasps. “That’s almost illegal.”

She should know.

Gardner, 50, is a veritable bumper sticker scholar. For nearly two years she has roamed the countryside--from a Mosquito Festival in Paisley, Ore., to the World Champion Cow Chip Throw in Beaver, Okla.--collecting information about America’s fender philosophers.

On this day she’s in Los Angeles, demonstrating her technique and plugging her new coffee-table book, “Bumper Sticker Wisdom--America’s Pulpit Above the Tailpipe” (Beyond Words Publishing).

It’s a collection of mini-interviews and photos that seeks to answer the question: Who are these people who plaster their cars with such messages as “So Many Pedestrians . . . So Little Time,” “Single Mormon Seeks Several Spouses,” “Happiness Is Seeing Your Boss’ Picture on the Back of a Milk Carton,” “Ted Kennedy’s Car Has Killed More People Than My Gun” and “Jesus Loves You, but Everyone Else Thinks You’re an [Expletive].”

In conducting her research, Gardner flagged down drivers on freeways, staked them out in parking lots or ambushed their cars at red lights.

Her quarry included cowboys, nudists (who insisted on posing for a snapshot in the buff), mechanics, abortion foes, students, Elvis freaks and a scientist who studies animal excrement (and whose aptly chosen bumper message reads: “S--- happens”).

There also was a cross-section of political voices, from “The Road to Hell Is Paved with Republicans” to “Clinton Doesn’t Inhale, He Sucks.”

To Gardner’s surprise, “I found I really liked individuals with whom I strongly disagreed. . . . People may hold diametrically opposing views and still be good people.”

Other discoveries:

* VW Beetles are the most likely cars to have stickers (Volvos run a close second).

* Santa Claus lives in Redmond, Ore. (Gardner ran across a dead ringer for the guy buying reindeer food at a ranch supply store there. His sticker: “If Reindeer Really Can Fly . . . Our Windshields Are in Big Trouble”).

* The cleverest messages are printed in all capital letters, with no illustrations.

* Bumper decals can be hazardous to one’s health. “A construction worker says he lost his job on a university site because of anti-gay stickers,” Gardner writes. “And in Kentucky, the driver of a pickup truck with a rebel flag was killed in a racially motivated attack.”

But usually the backlash is more lighthearted.

Consider the ubiquitous yet annoying “My Child Is an Honor Student at . . . “ sticker. Gardner says the message has engendered several sendups. “My Kid Beat Up Your Honor Student,” sneers one. “My Son Knocked Up Your Honor Roll Student,” snorts another.

Additional sticker spoofs have targeted “Visualize World Peace” (“Visualize Whirled Peas” or “Visualize Using Your Turn Signal”) and “Save the Whales” (“Save the Humans” or “To Hell With Whales--Save the Cowboy”).

*

Gardner is already working on a sequel.

At the back of her first book is a toll-free number soliciting nominees for “Bumper Sticker Wisdom II.”

And her stalking continues.

Dressed in cowboy boots, denim and an oversized belt buckle she describes as “my satellite dish,” Gardner recently visited Los Angeles to hunt for new material.

In Hollywood, she interviewed the bare-stomached owner of a “Support Your Local Belly Dancer” decal. At Pep Boys, she ran down a teen-ager whose bumper read, “Don’t Laugh, Mister. Your Daughter Might Be in Here.”

And at 60 mph on the 101 Freeway, her publicist obtained the name and number of a bunco-squad detective sporting a “Thumbs Up LAPD” sticker that his wife bought after the O.J. Simpson verdicts.

Because such research often requires driving techniques that aren’t found in DMV handbooks, Gardner slapped a warning on the bumper of her vehicle here: “Student Driver.”

Back in Oregon, where she works as a graphic designer, a more serious philosophy graces her car: “It’s Bad Enough Driving Sober. Don’t Drive Drunk.”

She affixed the sticker after interviewing a woman whose daughter had been killed by a motorist under the influence. (Gardner also plans to donate a portion of the book’s proceeds to Mothers Against Drunk Driving.)

Still, her favorite bumper messages tend to be humorous ones: “I’m Pink, Therefore I’m Spam” and “Enjoy Life--This is Not a Rehearsal.”

The book, too, is loaded with amusing slogans and quirky characters: “I Love Cats, They Taste Just Like Chicken,” “0-55 mph in 11 Minutes” (on a 1962 Nash), “Win an All Expense Paid Trip to Nearest Motel! Ask Driver for Details,” “Honk Once if You’re Jesus, Twice if You’re Elvis” and “I Was Gonna Run Away and Join the Circus . . . Then I Realized I Am the Freakin’ Circus.”

Curiously missing from Gardner’s report, however, is the Orlando Sentinel’s groundbreaking disclosure that bumper sticker believers who spot a car with an opposing view on the fender often maneuver their way in front of the misguided motorist to display their own stickers.

And then there’s the matter of that classic bumper message: “If You See This Van A-Rockin’, Don’t Come A-Knockin’.”

When asked for a comment, Gardner had to confess: “I’ve never heard of it.”

To which we can only offer advice inspired by another popular sticker of that era: Keep on stalkin’.