It started before I even got into work

[Food Lady]

I pulled up to a parking space and saw a cart touching the door of a van; it had obviously been left wherever and ran into that car. Then I saw the car owner come to the car and move the cart so she could get out. The suck is that she just pushed it away rather than making sure it was at the very least wedged against a pole or curb. She just pushed it, and luckily it missed my car, but rolled right out into mall traffic. Good thing no one hit it before it was across the street, stopped at the curb over there. She took a not-good situation and made it worse.

[Kristev]

She's so lazy. I wish trolleys had a device on them so that, if you kept your hands on them and brought they where they belong, they'd be just fine, but if you just pushed them away, and your hands let go, after a few seconds, the trolley would reflect back to you.

[sirwired]

Perhaps carts should have a break like the luggage carts at a lot of airports; you let go of the handle, and the cart simply stops.

[gaspode]

This is why most of the carts(trolleys over here) ,you have to put a £1 coin in to release the chain that is connected to the one in front of it,and can only get your money back when you reinsert the catch.

[MadMike]

Perhaps carts should have a break like the luggage carts at a lot of airports; you let go of the handle, and the cart simply stops.

The Lowes in my area used to have their lumber carts set up like that. There was a brake built into the handle, which you had to hold to disable the brake. As soon as you let go of the handle, the brake would engage.

I guess a lot of people complained, because when I went there again just a few months later, they had the brakes removed.

[Miss Maple Leaf]

gaspode, some grocery stores in Canada do that too. Some people just don't care enough about getting $1 back though, and will just ditch the carts anywhere rather than locking them back up.

Now, if stores could just figure out a way to make the carts have to accept $100 bills instead we'd never have another abandoned cart.

[Tsiyeria]

gaspode, some grocery stores in Canada do that too. Some people just don't care enough about getting $1 back though, and will just ditch the carts anywhere rather than locking them back up.

So there's actually a place where people can get money for pushing carts out of the parking lot and into the corral? I need to go to Canada.

[Kristev]

Sounds good to me.

[EricKei]

Stores here had the "insert a quarter for a cart" thing something like 20 years ago...It didn't last long after people figured out that the coin holders could be busted open without too much effort, as most of them got vandalized pretty quickly. I imagine that the cost in the coin thingies outweighed the cost in stolen carts pretty quickly.

[Betweenshades]

Some of the stores around here have it so you have to put in a Quarter. Across the street at WalMart, there are carts everywhere. At Aldi, where you have to "pay" a Quarter all the carts are always put away. It's effing hilarious.

[Mystic]

A better idea is to have stores use a system similar to postpay fuel cards that have your information on them so that you need to slide the card to take the trolly, and if it's not returned, the store charges you the cost of the cart, much like if you pump your fuel and leave without paying. They send you a letter in the post to pay it.

[Sparky]

There's a Target store attached to our mall. The mall didn't want people taking the carts out into the mall, and probably leaving them everywhere, so there's a system on the carts that locks the wheels if you push them too close to the door leading into the mall.

Now if they could just modify that....

Years ago the store my mother worked for tried putting a fence around the entrance/exit to the store so that carts wouldn't go through. You were supposed to leave your cart full of groceries and pull your car up to the store (designated area) to load up. It was supposed to be staffed. Of course, they didn't have enough people to have someone working there all the time and people's bags got stolen, so they soon quit that.

[EricKei]

Some major groceries here claim that carts will lock up if removed from the premises...but I don't think anyone believes them. Carts from all stores can be found pretty much anywhere, including being the majority of the carts in the racks at totally unrelated stores!

[Hyndis]

Charging a coin for use of a cart is a brilliant but simple way to ensure the lot is tidy. Charge maybe only a quarter to use a cart. Its cheap and everyone has a quarter.

When you put the cart back you get a quarter, even if its not your cart.

This means that you could actually make a decent amount of money just roaming around the parking lot finding and putting away carts. Those quarters will add up fast.

[Seshat]

Some people here do that.