I used to have a sports coupe with a pretty nice stereo system installed. There were small controls on the steering wheel that controlled the most common functions of the stereo, such as switching between the CD and the radio, changing CD tracks or channels, volume control, etc.. These controls allowed the driver to operate the stereo without taking his/her eyes off of the road.
I'm a computer programmer, and I duped my sister and two of her friends into thinking that I had reprogrammed the stereo into responding to my voice commands. I'd say something like "volume down" and then turn the stereo down using the steering wheel controls. When it wouldn't respond to their commands, I simply told them that the system only recognized my voice.
Imagine my sister's surprise when she got her driver's licence and borrowed my car...
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2,953 beliefs in this area
I used to believe…
When I was really little I believed that if the hazard lights turned on when you were driving the car would split in half and one half would turn left and the other right. Needless to say I was terrified of sitting in the middle.
i used to think that the cruise control on a car was actually consisting of two little computerized eyes in the front end of the car which directed the car to stay on the road and controlled its speed as well.
I used to believe that all roads were perfectly straight. From my too-short-to-see-above-the-dash perspective, I noticed that my mother had to keep turning the wheel (for curves in the road and such) and I remember thinking that something must be wrong with our car.
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i used to believe that planes did not fly the ground just moved.
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!
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I used to believe…
One time when I was 5 or 6, I was riding with my dad and he was drinking coffee. I told him he should stop drinking and driving :)
I used to believe…
I didn't understand the concept of a radio - I thought every car was made playing a certain kind of music. My grandparents listen to classical and, after they got a new car, I remember saying "It's a good thing this car plays the kind of music you like!"�
I used to believe…
We had a Station Wagon with an automatic back window. There was a small lever near the steering wheel that operated it. My mom had me convinced that if I pushed the button the car would fly. I was too terrified to ever touch the button.
I used to believe…
When I was about seven, I saw a person turn left while they had their right-turn signal on.
I thought that's how it worked for a long time!
I used to believe…
Once, Mother told me that when she was very little, she thought EVERYBODY had an airplane hangar in their backyards! The reason? Her father (my grandpa) was a crop-duster and had his own plane.
Grandpa still talks about his crop-dusting days with great fondness and it is amazing just hearing him tell stories: "I got so much chemicals in my system from back then that every mosquito dies whenever it lands on me!" His third wife, my step-grandmother, still has considerable trouble believing this oddity!
I used to believe…
...that the correct way to drive a car on a highway was to straddle the center yellow lines (my visual perspective from the passenger side of my Dad's Buick) Fortunately it would be many years before I would be old enough to get a driver's liscense.
I used to think that the "wind chill factor" was the "windshield factor" that was somehow derived by measuring the temperature of the windshield when a car was going really fast.
I used to believe…
The trails that aeroplanes leave across the sky are obviously created by pilots leaning out of the windows holding a piece of chalk, so they know where they've been. That's what I was told anyway.
I used to believe…
When I would be in the car with my parents as a really young kid, and I heard them mention "high beams", I thought they were saying "high beans". I pictured yellow string-beans as part of the car headlights!
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I used to believe that airplane pilots drove really fast down the runways just to show off and have fun before taking off.
I used to believe…
During a family vacation out west (New York to California), my mother was very nervous driving through St. Louis and hitting the right Interstate exit, so in order to get us kids to shut up, she said "You better be quiet because if I make the wrong turn, we're going to Canada!" This terrified me because I thought there was some horrible last-chance exit in St. Louis which would irrevocably commit you to going to Canada -- yes, if you took this exit you'd go through the whole United States with NO CHANCE to get off the road before hitting the Canadian border... I believed this for a couple of years!
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I used to believe that cars were alive and their headlights were eyes.
I used to believe…
My mom would tell us kids to press our hands on the roof of the car as we passed under a bridge. This was to hold up the bridge so it would not fall on us as we passed under it.
love you Mom :)
I used to believe…
My son saw a tow-truck dragging a car behind it. He said"What is wrong with the car?".I said" the battery is dead"
. He said'Who killed the battery?"