transport: cars

when I was a small child, I would while away long car journeys on rainy days by wondering what made the windscreen wipers move.
When I was about 5 or 6, it suddenly occurred to me that of course it was a ghost was sitting on the bonnet, + as my parents didn't seem concerned, it must have been a freind of theirs when it was alive.
This thought terrified me so much that I had to close my eyes every time the wipers moved.

My friend (Heather) was and i just turned 17 so we went up to the goldcoast (i drove)
We had to go on a toll way. I only had large notes so i pulled into the "manual" service lane. We were about to go through a toll bridge when my friend read the signs above the two different lanes:
"automatic" and "manual".
"No No No! " she screamed, "we're in the wrong lane, your cars an automatic!"
Omigod, it was so funny, i told the toll booth man, and he started crying with laughter

When i was younger,say about 5 or 6, i asked my father what thos bumps (reflectors) were on the road; he told me they were so that blind people could drive. Can you believe that i believed him?

I used to believe that cars are like us humans. With feelings and thoughts in their 'mind'. I would look at a car [for eg. a squared old car] and classify it as vintage and immediately i would think of old people. Whenever i see real cool cars [like Ford convertible] the image of handsome would appear. I, too usd to think that the cars will compete for the best like us humans. Wild eh? My dad knew of this belief of mine, so he would ask for my opinion before buying a new car. What do you know? I guess this belief was some good after all since i now have a 'honest-looking' car...

One day I was asking someone what all the buttons on a car did. I was told that the button I now know as the "Rear Defrost" was a self destruct button and if pushed, the car would blow up in about 10 seconds. I found out MANY years later the truth, only because I never dared to push it!

I grew up in the poorest country of the hemisphere (Nicaragua) where automobiles are mainly rich's people luxury. In my early twenty, and quite a good looking girl, I used to think that cars' blinking lights were a compliment to me -- like when people wink!! (Usually a man's wink, in Nicaragua is considered a compliment)
Not that I am so vain, just naive.

When I was very young, I always thought that when my family went on car trips, that my step dad only sat in the driver's seat and that the car somehow knew where to go and took us to those places. Boy, did I ever feel dumb when I finally found out the truth! Dad,I miss you and Thanks for being my dad!

My mum was driving me to school one day when a BMW sped past really fast and went through a red light. She shook her head and said "BMWs don't have any brakes". From then on i thought they really didn't have any brakes and was worried every time I saw one.

When I was preschool age, I didn't have a very good sense of space yet. In the car, I'd see us driving towards objects that were, at that distance, positioned "above" the hood. Since they were in line with the hood, and moving toward us, I reasoned that it meant we were hurtling straight toward them! It made car rides pretty stressful until I figured out I was simply wrong.

When we went on car trips my parents used a stick-on screen on the car windows, to keep out the sun. One time my brother took one off the window and placed his finger over a hole in the bottom of it. He told me it was peanut butter, and I remember trying to get it out as hard as I could.

When I was little, while driving in the car, I used to look at the trees we would pass, and I believed that they were running the opposite way, as if to flee from some terrible monster. I used to be scared for my parents to drive any farther.

Some really smart kid told me that the sensation of movement while in a car was an illusion. Really, it was the earth turning. I was ready to buy this until I noticed cars coming in the opposite direction - then I became very confused.

When I was a kid, I traveled form Raleigh to Charlotte, NC quite often. As long as trips seem to kids, I thought that the ride took forever ( a mere 3 hours). But one night we left for Raleigh at about 9:00pm, being that late, I immediatly fell to sleep, and when I woke up after what seemed to me to be no more than about 30 minuits totat travel time, we had arrived in Raleigh. I was then convenced that we lived allot closer to raleigh than my folks had been letting on all this time, and because I was asleep, they decided to take the short cut privy only to adults. It took several years to convence myself that the two towns were accually farther apart that i had imagined. I thought that it was all an adult plot to keep kids from trying to wander over to the next town to go to their Grandma's house!

When I was a kid, we often used to see wagon chassis, with no body shell. i assume that they were being driven from manufacturer to coach builder. The driver used to sit, exposed to the elements, wrapped up tight in thick, all over clothes, with his eyes protected by goggles. I blame my mother for my belief that these were highly dangerous diseased people and that any contact would be lethal. So they had to move around fully covered, to prevent spread of the disease, but highly visible so that others could avoid them. I think the fresh air might also have been good for them.

I used to think that when the weatherman said Wind Chill Factor He saying Windshield Factor, and was talking about how cold your car's windshield would be. (I always wondered why that ws so important.)

I used to believe that little men with torches ran under the road at night, lighting up the cats' eyes so that Dad could see where we were going.
They were related to the little men who turned on the light in the fridge when I opened the door.