cars

When I was younger I used to think that as soon as you got in the drivers seat in a car, you knew exactly where everything in the world was and how to drive there.

Anon

I used to (when I was about 9 or 10) think that license plate numbers were talking in code to me. So I would memorize license plate numbers and thought they were speaking to me.

Pearl

When I was a little, I often used to see one and the same dream. The thing is that strange car chased me, I tried to escape, but car didn't have any barriers. It was really terrible and I still get nervous when I dream something like that.

Olga from Russia, Dubna

I used to believe that when people tailgating before a sporting event meant the same as tailgating on the road, and I wondered why people would drive around for hours really closely behind people before games. I believed this well into my teens!

Ian

My friend had a five year old son who wad convinced that Volkswagon Beetles were the baby form of the larger Volkswagon vans like the one his family owned!He was even sure that he had seen a van "mating" with another vehicle- his mom thought maybe he had seen a van being towed and that's why why one end appeared to be up in the air and stuck to another vehicle.

Anon

I used to think that crash test dummies were people who'd been in car accidents, and anyone who had an accident would look like that forever afterwards. I'd seen too many car commercials where they show footage of the crash tests, I guess.

Still Overly Cautious Driver

When I was younger I didn't understand how cars fit inside a lane on the road because when you are sitting on the inside of the car, it looks like you take up the whole road.

Lorraine

When I was little (maybe 5 or 6?), I was allowed to sit in the front seat of my mom's old car. When I couldn't sit in the front seat of newer cars and asked why, she said it was because they had air bags. When I asked what air bags were, she described them as a balloon that comes out when the car gets into an accident. So for years I pictured a helium-filled balloon floating up next to the car to alert anyone nearby that an accident had occurred.

Anon

I used to think that 'Child Locking' only worked on children and that older people could still open the door.

Anonymous Whistleblower

When I was little my dad had a corvette and he glued a switch below the radio that said turbo on it. Whenever he said it was OK I'd flip the switch and he'd floor it. I always turned it off soon after so we didn't crash. I also made sure to keep my hands away from it so I didn't cause an accident by using it at the wrong time.

Rob

I always thought that people slowed down when passing car accidents because the accidents reminded them of their own mortality or led them to believe that it was a particularly dangerous patch of road, to be driven cautiously.

Jesse

When I was a kid I used to think that the car knew where to go after we all got in and my step dad sat behind the steering wheel.He said what do you think I'm sitting here for? I shrugged my shoulders and then said..I dunno?? maybe just holding onto it for whatever reason???

oreotheorca

When told that "everybody drives on the left side of the road" I wondered why. Wouldn't the cars hit each other if they all drove on the same side? And what was the right side used for?

Pablo

When I was little my dad never used the blinker in the car when and it drove my mom crazy. When I asked him why he didn't use the blinker, he said that each car came with a pre-set number of "blinks" and he didn't want to run out. Years later, my mom and I were driving my dad's car and I told her to use as many "blinks" as she wanted because dad had been saving up... my mom finally set me straight.

Cheechums