When I was younger, I believed that the way the stoplights at intersections worked, were by construction men in underground dirt rooms, looking at the traffic through tiny cameras. And they decided when to change it from green to red. I still have no idea why 'till this day.

Mona

When I was younger, my mom told me how traffic lights and street lights worked. I thought she was totally lying, and so I became convinced that all the lights that moved or turned on at certain times were operated by tiny gnomes who sat around and knew when to change the light.

Madii

I used to think that my mom controlled the traffic lights because she'd say the incantation that the Sesame Street magician said, right as the other light was turning yellow. So she'd say, "A la peanut butter sandwiches," and the light would instantly turn green!!!

Samantha from California

From when I was like 3 to 10 I used to think that there was a HUGE room with little moniters in it and there was one guy in a swirly chair with wheels and he controlled the lights. When I was like 7 I realized this was impossible I concluded that his chair automaticly went to the next light that needed to be changed (by magic of course). This soon made me think that only one traffic light in the whole world changed at a certain time.

ShawnB.

My Dad always said he had telepathy for when lights would turn green. I could only come to the conclusion that he did actually have superpowers...not actually some genius idea to look at when the other light turned red.

Organick

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

When I was younger, I thought there was some guy who's only job was to sit in a little booth by a streetlight and press the buttons that made it turn green, yellow, and red. I would always look for the booth and even though I never found it, I still held fast to this belief. I still remember the day when my preschool teacher burst my bubble when she asked me what I wanted to be when I grew up and I said, "A stoplight changer."

Erika

I used to believe that the Queen had a giant red button on her throne which she would press to make all the traffic lights in England change colour.

Anon

When I was a kid, I watched a lot of Star Trek. So, to me, it seemed perfectly plausible that a man in an invisible bubble was sitting above each and every intersection, waiting for cars to show up so he could change the color of the lights.

B-Dog

A friend and I, when we were about eight years old, if we found ourselves sitting in the car stopped at a traffic light, would chant "Red light, red light, turn turn GREEN!" to make the light change. If it didn't change immediately we'd start in with "Please? Pretty please? With a cherry on top?" until it changed.

I'm not sure if I actually ever believed that it was working, or if I knew in the back of my mind that by the time we got impatient and started the ritual, it would be time for the light to change anyways. I strongly suspect that she really did believe in our powers of persuasion over traffic lights.

Brenda

I asked my dad one day how the traffic lights worked. He told me that there was a department in city hall where a large group of civil servants was employed with pushing the buttons for green, orange, and red.

I then asked him why the lights would flash orange after 20:00 (as they used to do in my country) and in the weekends, to which the answer was of course that that was the civil servant would be done working.

I don't know if I actually believed this, but it made an uncanny kind of sense!

Solitary Dolphin

I used to believe that the traffic lights were operated by a miniature person who hid close to the traffic lights so he could direct traffic. I thought that he used a remote control to do this!

Goatgirl

The UK has box junctions (I don't know whether other countries have them) at some traffic light controlled junctions. You are not allowed to stop in the box when traffic from the ahead is queuing back to the junction. I thought that the yellow box held a load of glue and you could only avoid getting the car tyres/tires stuck on the box if you were driving fast enough across the junction!

crobzub

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

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 always knew that the beeping noise traffic lights made when you cross the street was to alert blind people - but for the longest time i just assumed it was to warn the blind drivers so they wouldn't run anyone over!!

Sophie

When I was little I thought that my dad had the ability to guess when the traffic light would turn green. He would start counting down, "3... 2... 1..." and then almost every time the light turned green. I'd try to guess, too, but I was almost always wrong. It wasn't until I was about 12 that I realized that all you have to do is look at the light going the opposite direction, and start counting when it turns yellow...

Anon

I used to think that traffic lights were the strings of lights some shops have up at Christmas. I was realy unhappy when I found out the truth because I felt they needed a wider variety of colours!

I also used to think that traffic jams were caused by jars of jam that were left in the road and stopped the cars moving. It made sense at the time!

Penny, England

my parents had us all believe that in order to change the traffic lights from red to green, we had to blow at them really hard and they would change. i have also instilled this into my kids , i find it sweet that they work so hard to keep our journey going - lets hope they aren't naughty like me though and blow them again when were through so that all the other cars are stuck there lol !

fairy

I used to believe that at dusk someone would turn on a switch that would give traffic lights more power so the red, yellow and green could shine brighter, so drivers could see them better. After all, it was dark, and the lights looked brighter to me. Near sun-up, I believed that they would turn the power back down so the lights would not be as bright during daylight, because they didn't need to be.

And this was long before any energy crisis.

Vicki J.