I used to believe that traffic lights in certain parts of the world had giant blades that would drop down if your car went through them after you were red. As kids we thought it was the coolest thing to imagine a red light runners car being chopped in half... Imagine if this was a law!

Jordan Moline

I used to believe that when i pushed the button to be given permission to WALK across the street that there was a little man under the road, and when i pushed the button he got electrocuted, so the more i pushed it, the quicker i got to walk.,

Mychal

i used to belive that traffic lights were my friends, and i (no one else) could talk to them, and tell them when they could turn green, and red... there was one i used to like im particular who i always talked toooo... :( but then we moved away

shell

i used to believe that traffics lights were controlled by mice watching for cars and running through the wires switching the lights for us

greg

that the green traffic light turned blue when it was off

Kriket Evens

I used to think I could change traffic lights to green.
If I knew we were in a hurry to get somewhere I would talk to the
traffic light under my breath and promise it lots of new wires if
it changed to green , and it would a lot of the time.
It was sort of cruel of me to lie to them.lol.

Anon

My father is a terrible practical joker. He inflicted his sense of humour on all 4 of his children, and, unfortunately, now on my nieces and nephews too. Amongst the things that I believed were:
That dad was a god, with magic powers. He could change traffic lights from red to green, by commanding "lights please change". Miraculously, the lights would change colour - it wasn't until i was about nine that i realised that dad was watching for the lights in the other direction to turn before his command!
He also told me that the giant bales of hay in farmers paddocks were in fact 'wild hay', a type of very shy animal that would move only when no-one was looking at it. Occasionally they were covered in a tarpolen, because they were prone to catch colds, and the farmers were worried about them. I suppose its not that unusual for a city kid like myself to believe this, but unfortunately my older sisters kids - born and bred in the country - believe this as well!
Unfortunately, my father's jokes appear to be genetic - last week i convinced my three year old niece that bread grows on trees. We spent nearly an hour hunting around the backyard for bread to have with dinner. Amazingly, we found a french stick and two rolls - that i had hidden earlier.

Rebecca H.

I used to think that police cars, fire trucks, and ambulances would have a button in their cars that when they came to a red light, they could push it and it would make the light turn green and everbody elses would turn red.

Anon

When I was six I used to believe that if you smiled at traffic lights they'd think you were nice and let you through so I always ended up telling mum and dad to smile when we stopped at one.

Anon

When I was young, I was certain that inside every single stop light, a small man was sitting and waiting for the man watching the traffic in the pole to tell him it was time to change the lights. My dad had pretty good luck with the colors and was always singing at the light so I was pretty sure they liked his singing, now I'm constantly belting a good tune when I'm waiting on a rather lengthy light to change.

Elle

I was thoroughly convinced as a child that my father could make lights change, and that occasionally, he could endow me with this ability.

We'd be at a light, and finally, he'd say, "Change, light!" and it would! Occasionally, he'd tell me to yell "CHANGE!" and it would.

Funny how I never put together that he was just watching the opposing lights to see when they went yellow. :)

Gary

I used to believe that there were green, yellow and red fairies that would stick their really big bellies into the traffic to make them change colors. The green one was the nice one that let the cars go; the yellow one was always in a hurry and so could only do her job quickly, and the red one was nasty, thus slow traffic. My mother says she used to say 'Come on traffic light fairies, make the light turn green!' when I was in the car, so that's probably where I got this theory from.

Sara

I used to believe that the traffic lights were all red yellow and green m & m's. They would all have walkie talkies up there and would tell eachother when to show their back to change the lights.

Anon

I used to say thank-you to all red lights when they changed to green. My parents let me believe this until I started taking driving lessons!

Anon

When I was five years old, my dad told me that green meant stop and red meant go, which messed up my perception of traffic lights for at least three years...

Christina

As a kid I used belived that when the Traffic lights turned Green, it meant "Go" for everyone. And so I would run like mad to cross the street darting between the cars. I also belived that the books and teachers were wrong in school, coz if it means "GO" for cars it means "GO" for everyone.

I realised how lucky I was in college when I saw my friends wait for the light to turn RED to cross!!

Ami Newton

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

Age 5: I believed that traffic lights were inhabited by small babies. After all, adults couldn't fit in them, right? Inside the traffic signals were red, yellow, & green buttons for the babies to push. When we got stopped at a red light for a long time, it stood to reason that the baby in that light had fallen asleep. A few honking horns would awaken the baby, who would then push a green button. Weird, huh?

davidmsc

I could never understand how traffic lights made cars stop. I thought the red light was somehow transmitting a signal to the braking system.

Archie

when i was little thought that ants changed traffic lights from green to red and vice versa.

Anon