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LYNNE HOGGAN: Yes you can drive with the car’s interior light on (and other lies your parents told you)

Driving with the interior light on, eating your crusts - growing up means learning that it pays to question the things parents tell you.

car interior with courtesy light on
So if driving with the interior light isn't illegal, what about the other things your parents tell you? Image: Shutterstock.

A funny thing about getting older is finding out that so many of the things your parents used to tell you aren’t true.

Like you can’t put the inside light on when the car is moving, for instance.

How many car journeys do you remember being on when you switched that light on from the passenger seat or the back? Only for the person who was driving to shout at you to turn it off again because it’s illegal to have it on while you’re driving.

Yeah, turns out it’s a myth.

The writer Lynne Hoggan with a quote: "I don't suppose parents are going to stop telling fibs to their children. But can we maybe start making up some new myths going forward please?"

I googled it and the advice is: “You CAN drive with an interior light switched on. Generations of drivers have grown up thinking it is illegal to have the courtesy light on. But the RAC says it’s perfectly okay to drive with the white light showing.”

Well there you go (because obviously everything Google says is right).

Cinema snack sneaks of the world, relax

Then there’s the one about not being allowed to take your own food into the cinema.

I still thought that was a thing until recently.

How many times have you tried to sneak in sweets or bottles of juice, thinking they’d be confiscated if you get caught?

Turns out you CAN take your own snacks to the cinema. Image: Shutterstock.

You had get to your seat, look around to make sure no one was watching then pull out a massive packet of crisps that weren’t from the cinema and congratulate yourself on getting away with it.

Turns out we weren’t being criminal masterminds after all.

I tested it out the other day.

I’d bought tickets for Perth Playhouse. The boys wanted popcorn. Fair enough: nothing beats the real stuff from the cinema.

But before I went to see the movie I quickly grabbed a couple of packets of crisps and some juice from a shop around the corner and walked in with my wee bag of goodies.

Lynne’s boys get stuck into their cinema snacks. Image: Lynne Hoggan.

There were no alarms going off, no security guards, no problem at all.

I’m not saying take in McDonald’s meals for all the family or start dishing out pizza to your pal sat next to you, but a wee bag of snacks won’t get you thrown out, so relax and save yourself some money.

The things parents tell you don’t always add up

There’s plenty of other stuff we believed that’s turned out to be bogus too.

Eating crusts doesn’t make your hair curly.

Eating carrots won’t help you see in the dark.

And I’m pretty confident now that touching dandelions won’t make you wet the bed.

Dandelions: nothing to fear. image: Shutterstock.

But that doesn’t make up for all the fear I went through any time I accidentally touched one as a kid.

I don’t suppose parents are going to stop telling fibs to their children. But can we maybe start making up some new myths going forward please?

Like the one about how eating chocolate cake is actually good for you and will make you happy.

Wait that one actually is true, right?

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