cars

My parents and I often went on little road trips when I was younger and I didn't fully understand how cars worked. For some odd reason I believed that the roads were like giant conveyor belts and the cars just sat on them. The cars that passed us were just on faster belts. I have no clue why I thought that...

Neil

I used to believe that pizza delivery cars/trucks were manufactured with that little light-up pyramid on top of the car advertising the restaurant. They would simply order the number of cars they wanted from the pizza-delivery car company.

To explain the diversity of the vehicles, I had reasoned that they must make so many red Fords for Pizza Hut, so many green Toyotas for Domino's, and so on.

maggie

When I was young and we would go on trips, I would feel sorry for the people in the cars going the opposite direction as us because I thought they were coming back from vacation!

Amy K.

When my children were little we would be driving along and go over streps in the road ( you know the ones that keep you from falling asleep ) I would tell them that they were wake-up bumps. About 14 years later my 17 year old daughter and i were talking about them and she thought they were makeup bumps, she never could figure out why they were called that.

Jennifer Hopper

When I was a little girl my dad always drove a Pontiac, and the headlight dimmer switch was on the floor where we could'nt see it. The indicator light on the dash was shaped like an Indian Head and lit up when the bright lights were on. When we met a car our dad would dim the lights with his foot but he always told us the Indian saw the oncoming car and dimmed the lights for him. Later when we bought a new car it did'nt have an Indian head. My sister and I were really worried that the oncoming traffic would be blinded by our bright lights.Boy were we gullible!

Sheli

I always wondered what was going on when we drove over gravel in our car (too short to see out the window). One day I asked while my uncle was in the car and he said all the bugs that were in the car were being dumped out. For years I would never stick my hands down in the seat cracks for fear of the creepy crawlies that lived in the car!

brando

When I was little, I believed that the music that came from the car radio was being played by a person under the engine playing a record player. I always wondered when we started the car why this person couldn't start the music up right where we had last left off.

Lisa

The buttons that raise and lower the windows in my car are not visible from the back seat. Somehow my niece and nephew, seeing the windows go down but not seeing a "cause" from their seats in the back decided that they were able to control the windows with their voices. Now anytime they ride with me they sing songs and say magic "abacradara" phrases to get the windows to go up and down...except in winter of course, because we all know that windows hibernate in the winter time.

Sammy

i used to believe that the hazard button on the car was an ejection button and if pressed my seat would eject me out through the sunroof.

Anon

When I was little I always had to know where we were going, my dad always used to say,"wherever the car takes us.." as a result, I used to believe the car had auto-pilot capabilites and that the way the car stopped at the red light was that a transparent shield came down and stopped the car softly...when the shield was gone the car would automatically continue it's journey.

Dee Mac

We used to vacation by motorhome a lot and I always thought that on those long cross country trips that "cruise control" meant that my dad turned this on at night so he could go lay down to sleep. I always wondered how the motorhome knew there was a curve coming up? and a McDonalds at the next exit!!!

Am

When our kids were little, I used to drive an old Rover 2600 that had a low-oil warning light on the dashboard. This thing was huge for what it was, about the size of an adult man's thumb nail. The electrics in that old car were pretty bad, and this light stayed half-on all the time in a soft ruddy glow.
We were all returning home one evening and this glow was just becoming visible in the gathering gloom, and one of the kids asked what it was.
Of course, we told them it was the Sunset Meter that told us it was getting dark enough to put the main lights on...

Biggles

As a child (In UK), I believed that all cars had to drive on the left, except cars that were coming the other way. Of course Police cars and Ambulances were allowed to drive down the middle of the road.

Steve

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.

Vikki

A grade-school friend tried to convince me that the chassis of a car was called the "fuel sladge" and it was what made a car go fast. I knew better. I already knew it was the gas pedal!

Rod

One day, when I was litte girl, we went for a family drive. Being at the "what is that-why is that?"age, I asked my Dad what the handles on the roof of the car were for. He replied, in a convining way, that they were for holding the roof on in high winds and when driving down the motorway. From then on there were wry smiles whenever I helpfully offered to 'hold the roof on'..!

Angela.T, London

When I was very young my mother and I would often take a back road to go home. My mom called this "the invisible road" because when we drove on it we became invisible. To prove her point she would tell me to watch as other cars went by. The people in the cars would not look at us. Why? Because we were invisible of course!
To this day when I go home to visit I will often go miles out of my way to drive on the "invisible road".

Joel Harz

I used to believe that when you pressed the red button on the dash board, the car would blow up, i later realised it was the button that activated the hazard lights.

madskills