Let's be clear — everyone has to learn to drive at some point. Nobody emerged from the womb nailing a parallel park on Lombard Street. Learning is fine. Learning is necessary. But at what point does a magnetic sticker become less of a courtesy warning and more of a get-out-of-jail-free card for cutting across four lanes on 101?

The stickers seem to be multiplying. Whether that's because more people are actually new to driving or because existing drivers have discovered a life hack for avoiding road rage, we're not sure. But the phenomenon raises some legitimate questions about what exactly these drivers are asking of the rest of us.

Are we supposed to give them a 50-foot buffer? Forgive the rolling stop at every intersection? Politely ignore the fact that they're going 38 mph in the left lane of 280? And what about the cars sporting multiple faded stickers — if your "new driver" decal has been sun-bleached into oblivion, you're not new anymore. You're just bad at this.

One Bay Area driver put it bluntly: "99% of the time it's an old head that wants to be excused for driving like a dumbass." Harsh? Sure. But spend a week commuting through San Francisco and tell us the frustration isn't earned.

Here's the thing — we're all for courtesy on the road. If a sticker helps a genuinely new driver feel less anxious while they're building confidence, great. But courtesy is a two-way street (pun intended). New drivers still need to learn the rules, check their mirrors, and understand that a sticker is not a substitute for competence.

The bigger issue might be what these stickers reveal about our driving culture: nobody wants to be accountable. Slap a sticker on, and suddenly mediocre driving is everyone else's problem. That's not how roads work — and it's definitely not how personal responsibility works.

Drive safe out there, sticker or not. The rest of us are counting on it.