Haha! I think that's common kid lore. Hell, I think even as a teenager, my friends and I would instinctively avoid that bottom interchange. Now you hear about people getting their pant hems caught in the gears and getting in some grim situations. In the last ten years, I've had reoccurring nightmares where the escalator is super steep and nearly flat and of course, there are no regular stairs to be seen! Yeah, I'm an adult and I have a relatively recent escalator phobia. 
I can't say I blame you. I wonder if has to do with the amount of information on the internet now? Were these things happening around us and we just didn't know when we were younger? Do you go on escalators a lot in your day to day?
I forget which airport it was at, but I came across a really steep escalator that was a few stories up and in the open, like nothing on either side of it and glass sides. I'm guessing the look the designer of it was going for was floating stairs in the open. They got it right. I was going down and when I approached it, I slowed down before I stepped on it. It was like I was looking over a cliff. I've never been afraid of them until that time.
