Well at long last someone has dug their heels in over a slogan on a Wicked campervan and engendered a significant change. This company is now going to change slogans of an ‘insensitive nature’.

http://www.abc.net.au/news/2014-07-16/wicked-campers-apologises-for-controversial-van-slogan/5601622

I have been looking at these vans for years and wondering how on earth the company is allowed to keep putting up many very dodgy ‘throw-away’ lines of all sorts on their vehicles…. and how these can appeal to people who hire them and drive around displaying these to all and sundry without feeling embarrassed about it.

I had come to assume that plenty of people must have complained and therefore that all the slogans were totally and unequivocally legal. It appears that they are, but some are nonetheless inappropriate.

Or are they? Maybe they are just part of the everyday Australian vernacular and style of expression. Maybe 99.9% of all people who read them can see the wry or risqué humour or think that it is a bit weak or unintelligent or trashy… but not of any real concern.

Maybe those who do get concerned about things like this – and I include myself in regards to a couple that I have seen – just need to get a life?

I have taken photos of some of these. I put lots of my photos up on Flickr. The only photo I have ever had banned or made unavailable for general viewing is one of a slogan on a Wicked campervan.

http://www.smh.com.au/travel/travel-incidents/wicked-campers-condemned-by-senate-20140717-ztua4.html

Ludwig,

"Or are they? Maybe they are just part of the everyday Australian vernacular and style of expression. Maybe 99.9% of all people who read them can see the wry or risqué humour or think that it is a bit weak or unintelligent or trashy… but not of any real concern."

Here again, the idea of this kind of humour as "risque" is beyond the pale.

http://thehoopla.com.au/wicked-think/

"In 2008 when I wrote a story for the Brisbane Sunday Mail criticising Wicked Campers for the base and offensive sexist “jokes” scrawled on the sides of those clapped out vans that spew excessive carbon monoxide into the atmosphere, this is what the company did.

They painted a van with a special slogan, just for me, and sent it touring down to Byron Bay where I was living at the time. I never saw the van myself, just saw the photo a friend sent me.

It said: “Dear Lucy, I can already imagine the gaffa tape on your mouth.” (photo included in article)

"Yep, someone at Wicked Campers devised a message for me, threatening harm, and gave the go ahead for it to be painted it on the side of a van and then sent that van in my direction. Because I had taken exception to messages like these being read by my kids"

"I went to the police to make a complaint and established that there was a criminal charge that could be laid if I wanted to – threaten to harm."

"This is the same company that painted the then Queensland Premier Anna Bligh naked and with her legs apart on a van after she took exception to their racist “Save a Whale, Harpoon a Jap” slogan. They “decided at the last minute” not to let the van out on the streets… but released photo of it to the press, which duly obliged with a story."

"John Webb, the company’s owner, told SBS yesterday that bad publicity was better and easier to get, and he was “happy to see” Wicked get marketed around the world because of the online petition."

Dear Ludwig,

You're a bit of a puzzle.

You appeared not to be offended by Rolf Harris's
criminal behaviour. Yet you are offended by slogans
on camper vans.

Dear Poirot,

I'm sorry that you had to go through such a vile
experience. And I am glad that we do have laws
forbidding speech or in this case - signs, that
offend public decency by using obscenities.

I suspect that there will be posters on this forum
who will argue for "freedom of speech," rights.
However, as we know, people who enjoy the rights of
free speech have a duty to respect other people's
rights. A person's freedom of speech is limited
by the rights of others and all democratic societies
put various limitations on what people may say.

And Thank Goodness for that.

Ludwig, not sure aout these days, but it's my understanding they were started as an affordable option for back packers to travel the countryside. The used to buy them for $2500, drive them for sim months, then get a guaranteed $500 back and, they had many location throughout the country where they could leave them.

The owner would then give them a quick once over, then sell them again.

The slogans were usually painted by the back packers, not the owners.

Living in Noosa we get our fair share of Wicked vans parked around town and like the other posters, I find some of the slogans and artwork very offensive. I'm no prude by any stretch of the imagination.

I happened to meet a driver of one of the vans, an Italian tourist that told me he was ashamed of the van they gave him, after receiving a lot of verbal abuse from people, mostly at stop lights. He had painted over the offensiveness by the time I met him. It goes to show that not all of the drivers can be judged by the vehicle.

Foxy,

It wasn't me...but the author of the article I posted who was the target of that sign on the camper van.

I agree that the laws on public decency and threatening harm (in particular) are there for good reason.

(Just another thing: I hesitated to post a few of the slogans that Wicked Campers used for fear of them being seen as too explicit by OLO moderation [in light of machinations on the other thread], instead leaving it at posting the article)