transport: traffic lights

When I was a child, I used to see the "Don't Walk" light(the one that's in the shape of a hand), and think that if you would move while it was on, it would come out and slap you. So I was very afraid to move and I would tell my parents "Don't move or the hand will slap you!"

We were driving somewhere this morning; Mom, me, and my little sister. I took the opportunity to quiz them about traffic lights.

"What does a red light mean?" I asked.
"Stop," Audrey (3 years old) answered.

"What does a yellow light mean?"
"Go slow."

"What does a green light mean?" I asked.
"GO, DUMB-A**!!" Audrey answered promptly.
I burst out laughing. Needless to say, my mother learned that she needs to watch her language when her younger daughter is in the car!!

when I was younger I once saw my friend after she had had a green lollipop, and her tongue was green. from that point on until I was about 8, I believed the stoplights changed because of people sticking their tongues on the glass.

Unlike some of the posts here, I didn't think there were little men or animals operating the traffic lights, I thought the traffic lights were happy when they were green, surprised when they turned yellow and then mad when they were red.

I used to believe the traffic lights could be changed if you concentrated hard enough. I used to practice on the bus every day and my sister always complained how I made weird faces.

When I was little I thought that there was a giant room under the city where a man worked. I thought it was his job to change the stoplights and he would flip the switches one after the other, that is why you could look down the road and see the lights changing one by one.

I used to believe that traffic lights were linked by wires to a room at the nearest police station, with lots of switches that could change them from red to amber to green and so on.

I thought they were operated by a really old policeman who was too old to pound the beat any more.

As a child, I was firmly convinced that all the traffic lights in the entire country (Britain) were operated by separate, large teams of people based in subterranean offices.

Each set of traffic lights was fitted with a periscope, like the one on a submarine. The leader of the team would spend most of his time staring up through this at the street, whilst his minions brought him sandwiches, cakes and coffee.

When traffic approached, he would alert his second in command, who immediately bellowed into a desk microphone: "Action stations!"

The rest of the team members would then jump up from their desks and turn a giant handle that changed the colour of the traffic lights.

If the leader was annoyed with the local council for some reason, he would deliberately wind the officials up by creating a massive traffic jam and making everybody late for work that day. If he'd heard about a bank raid on the news, he'd use the jam to help the police capture the robbers.

I used to look forward to being a student when I was older, as I reckoned they helped change the traffic lights during the college holidays - and got paid tons of money for doing it. During quiet periods, you could read the paper, watch the telly, drink mugs of tea and eat biscuits.

The walls of the traffic light changing stations were padded with empty egg boxes, to muffle the sounds of the traffic passing overhead.

I thought there was a man in a control room who controlled all the traffic lights in the country...when you pushed the crossing button he saw it and changed the lights.

When I was 2 or 3 my dad taught me "green means go, red means stop, and yellow means STEP ON IT!!!" For years I couldn't figure out what I was supposed to step on. It finally dawned on me when I was learning to drive that I was supposed to "step on" the gas.

I used to believe that there were little elves inside traffic lights, and that they watched to see people that were going to fast and they would put the red lightg on to make them stop.

I used to believe that while on holiday in Spain, i had seen the red and green man at a pedestrian crossing fight each other, and would tell people about this whenever the thought entered my head until i was about 5. That was only because i again saw whatever film that scene appeared in (i think Superman 1 or 2), and realised my utter stupidity.

I think they have these all over the world, but here in Britain we have a crossing light system with a red man standing still, and a green man walking. As a child, I believed when i turned my back, the little red and green men would begin to fight each other for supremacy over the crossing lights. I have no idea why.

My sister is 10 years younger so she was 6 when I started driving, and everytime I was at an intersection with lights and turning, she would start getting upset because I was going through a red light. Thing is I wasn't going through a red light, except that when we were turning she would see the red light for the traffic going the opposite direction and think I was not obeying ALL of the lights.

This is my dad's explanation to me and my sisters when we were young as to why people stopped their cars at traffic lights: drivers like the sight of the red traffic lights so much that they stop their cars and look at them. They dislike looking at the green lights so much that when the light changes from red to green, they simply drive away.

I used to believe that when we drove through the rain at night, a monster would climb on top of our car. And when we stopped at a red-light, he would get ready to attack, and only green-lights saved us. I got really nervous when I saw yellow-lights, because I knew it was about to turn red. It never occured to me that someone would of course see a big, harry monster riding on the hood of our car and call the cops.