traffic lights

when I was young, I somehow didn't know the meaning of the red traffic light. So I figured out that it was meant for people from an other country. And when I thought of people from an other country, I somehow always thought of Chinese people(?). So when the red orange light turned into red, I was always looking around for Chinese people who drove through.

Joseffa Trip

When I was around 5 years old, I remember visiting my grandparents in a big city. I had never seen traffic lights before and I believed that a person lived under the road and shone differents coloured torches through tubes.
I've been digging up heaps of roads but I still haven't found the traffic light people: They're too fast!

The Amazing Pancake

i use to think that in order to cross the street in a car that you had to push the pedestrian crossing button. I also used to the think that the blue reflectors on the streets were lights and i always wondered who turned them on every night.

c

When I was little I thought that there were cameras on the traffic lights and these two men were in a building that the camera wire lead to. So I thought that the two men worked there ALL day, and when they saw somebody waiting to go across the street they would change the light to red so the person can go across the street.

~Anonymous~

I used to think that there was a man controlling traffic lights: he would wait until there was a car before changing the light to green.

ano

When i was about 5 i was driving in the car w/ my mom and dad and i we came to a stop light and there was the green light and it was the arow pointing up and i said "mom does that arow pointing up mean where goin to heaven" and my mom and dad started laughing and they said "no that means where going straight" i didnt believe them untill i was about 8

XoXo -Hippie-

Traffic lights were controlled by people in towers looking down at the streets. When there was a long line of people at a red light, the controllers would see, and switch it to green. I did wonder how it worked when the controllers left work, though.

Anon

I used to think that each traffic light had a control room underneath the street and that city employees monitored the traffic with video cameras, manually changing the lights at arbitrary intervals.

Andrew

I can't even tell you where I got this from..When I was about 5 0r 6 I had this strange belief that a yellow light meant turn. Whenever I was in the car with someone and the light turned yellow, I insisted that the driver had to turn. Oh, the mind of a 5 year old.

Danielle

When I was little I used to believe they used midgets to put them in traffic lights and they would take a flashlight and make the different colors shine and the double lights that are bigger were used when they ran out of little people and bigger people would work them. They had to be really smart to know when to change the lights and they would look out through little peep holes around the light

Kori

I used to get upset when I would wait at a crosswalk and a large truck would pass, because I thought it would block my view of the signal that told me to cross. It took me about two years to realize that this would never happen, because I wasn't going to be allowed to walk in front of moving vehicles.

Jessica

I used to believe that traffic lights were remotely controlled by someone looking out from a nearby building. The traffic controller would therefor change the light appropriately depending on the traffic. I therefor thought that the controller wasn't paying attention when we were stopped at a red light and there were no cars driving in the other direction.

Tommy

As a little kid, I asked my mom how traffic lights worked, and she responded that they were operated by computers. I of course envisioned a person in a room surrounded by computers, pressing buttons to control traffic lights.

Vince

My brother told me that little men lived under the traffic lights to make them changed.

Arts sister

I used to believe that, in every city, a VERY large number of policeman(and woman), sat in a humongous room, looked at all the traffic lights through small TV screens (every single one,) and pressed buttons to make it change from red-yelleow-green.ex: a policeperson looks at a screen, then, munching a doughnut, sits up, pushes a green buton, and the cars start going.

Mi** Dr**, Dall**, 11

when i was little my father always told me that the lights on top of the bridge towers were operated by little people who flicked their lighters.

kimberly

When i was little i used to believe that there were people watching all of the traffic lights in the world through cameras, and when there was enough cars backed up at a red light they would flip the switch to green and they would get to go, and the other side would have to stop.

Blair

My father had me convinced that the traffic lights were controlled by him. He would say, " when I count to three the light will change". He would count one, two ,three, and sure enough it would change. Not knowing that all he was doing was watching when the light in the opposite direction was turning yellow. I was just amazed how he could do that.

Jennifer

I used to think that traffic lights were controlled by some dude in a building nearby that flipped a switch so that the lights would turn red or green. No matter where I went, I would look around and wonder where that dude could be hiding.

fresh

i used to believe that a man lived in the traffic lights and would change the colors. I spent hours trying to think of how he would fit.

Omar