Whenever my family took a drive, I always wondered how the traffic lights knew what to do. My theory was that a man with a huge control panel was hisdden in the bushes watching and pushing just the right buttons. =)

Ciarlene

I think they have these all over the world, but here in Britain we have a crossing light system with a red man standing still, and a green man walking. As a child, I believed when i turned my back, the little red and green men would begin to fight each other for supremacy over the crossing lights. I have no idea why.

Bruno

When I was young I used to believe that "traffic light changer" was an actual occupation, and it involved sitting in a little office underground at an intersection, with something like a submarine telescope which stuck out of the ground above you so you could watch the traffic and know when to switch the light from red to green.

Anon

I distinctly remember being told that the red traffic lights were red because they were flames, and that to turn the light green we had to blow out the fire. And to think of all the time I spent huffing and puffing at the windshield! Never once occurred to me to ask "How will the air I blow get through the windshield to put out the light?"

Jo

I used to think that each traffic light had a control room underneath the street and that city employees monitored the traffic with video cameras, manually changing the lights at arbitrary intervals.

Andrew

I used to think that when the light turned green, everyone started driving at the exact same time - that you didn't wait for the car in front of you to start moving before you started riving. So when I got older and started noticing that we didn't immediately start driving when the light turned green, I got confused...

Deanna

When I was little, my dad would tell me that he was psychic and he knew when red lights would change green, and he would do it with amazing accuracy. It was years before I realized he was just looking at when the other lights in the intersection turned red.

stephen

When i was younger i used to believe that the red blinking traffic lights were just like red lights, except that you had to go right between blinks

McKenzie

My dad told me that the government took his handprint as an outline for the red "stop" hand that came up when crossin the street. I'd always stop and tell my friends, "Look! That's my Dad's hand!"

Anon

I used to believe that if you blow at a traffic light it would change to green

Bree

I used to think that traffic lights were controlled by some dude in a building nearby that flipped a switch so that the lights would turn red or green. No matter where I went, I would look around and wonder where that dude could be hiding.

fresh

I used to believe that the yellow street light meant slow down in Georgia and HURRY UP in LA, California. Apparently, i didn't find out that it was just a joke that my mother had told me three years earlier until i was 12!!!

Netters

I used to believe that there were very thin men who would work inside the traffic lights. I believed that they had hamburgers on their head (the pile went all the way up to the top), and I would be happy for them when they could leave, and walk again, once another man had taken his place.

Naïs

When I was real little, and I would be in the car with my mom driving, whenever she took a left turn, I would have to warn her that she just went through a red light. Well, the red light was for the street she was turning onto. duh.

Anon

I used to think that when you got to a stoplight that there were cars coming in your direction on the other side in the same lane. I would always ask my mom "What happens if the both sides of the street fills up?" She never understood what I was talking about.

Mia

When I was a child I used to belive tha there was a man under the road working the traffic lights. I used to press the button harder and look more eager in case the man saw me and made the lights change quicker!

Alanna

I used to believe there was like an arcade game in a pole for trafic lights, and someone was playing the game and that made the lights change.

Ali

my dad denies it now, but he told me that the queen/ police men lived in the boxes that operate the traffic lights. u no, those one about a meter high and 50 cm wide?? ya. and i used to think that various wild animals lived in the big power boxes.

well and truly confused

When I was about 6 I believed that traffic lights were controlled by men who worked underground in a darkened room with stone walls and floors. The men would make the lights change by pulling on the appropriate string, which dangled from the ceiling.

Marianne