Here was how I imagined traffic lights worked:
Pressure-sensitive plates were placed directly beneath the asphalt on all the roads. When too many cars drove over them, indicating that traffic was getting too heavy on a particular road and wildly rushing cars were more likely to crash into each other, the light turned red to stop all the cars and make their drivers calm down. Then the cars on the other road, their drivers nicely calmed down, could proceed until they, too, became disorderly and the pressure plates told the light to change.
I came up with this hypothesis all on my own. When I asked my dad if this was how traffic lights worked, he, trying to keep his focus on the road, just said "Sure, hon." So I believed this for quite some time. ;P
A childhood belief about traffic lights
others believed things like this
- i used to beleive that a traffic jam was wen cars got stuck in jam!Anon
- 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 belive that there was a god living in every traffic light, controlling the traffic!— Sukhi
- I believed that traffic lights had police officers inside them, turning the lights on and off...— CrowHeart
- I thought the no overtaking sign meant that red cars cannot drive by black cars.— Helen