Once, driving on a long journey, my father became worried that his fog lights (also known as main-beam headlights) were not working properly. He got out of the car and Mum flashed the lights from "ordinary" to "fog light". I noticed that Dad turned away whenever it turned to "fog light," and being a nine-year-old who knew nothing about cars, I asked why.
"Oh, if the light shines in his eyes he won't be able to see anything," Mum explained.
Flash forward to me at the age of fifteen, on yet another car journey. We discover that the single-track road that Mum's been driving down is blocked by a closed gate, but the land owner appears out of nowhere and opens it for us. Mum appreciatively flashes her lights, except that instead of putting them on and off, she flicks them to fog light...
"Mum!" I scream. "Turn it off, that's the fog light! He'll go blind!"
Turns out they'd only been talking about being temporarily dazzled...
A childhood belief about cars
others believed things like this
- When i was little i always thought there were little men inside the traffic lights changing the light— Kiley
- I used to believe that the yellow light in traffic-lights meant Go Faster!— M. L. E.
- I used to believe that I could make a laser by putting more batteries in a flash light.— Tyler
- I used to think that if you shone a flashlight beam onto a lightbulb long enough, it would eventually light.— Karen K
- that the green traffic light turned blue when it was off— Kriket Evens
- I used to believe that there where little mice the the street lights that turned them on and off.Anon