> Ever shop where people steal carts?

> I have, seen this system, it doesn’t really help much.

Some stores have carts that lock up once you leave the parking lot.

And how do you know they’re "stealing" them? Maybe they just don’t have
cars and can’t carry the heavy groceries home w/o the aid of the cart.
I see people do this all the time and they don’t "steal" it, they leave
it on the curb for the cart collector to come pick it up.

> There are almost never stray carts in the car park.

At the chicago grocery store I used to go to with that system many years
ago, instead of one cart floating, they’d float in pairs… or people
would just bust the mechanism.

> I have a great idea for this. Stores should charge a quarter for the
> use of the cart. Then refund the quarter when you return the cart to a
> designated stall. Most are such penny pinchers, they would definately
> return the cart. Some may even grab other carts.

Ever shop where people steal carts?

I have, seen this system, it doesn’t really help much.

>A better solution is just to
>drive a beater like i do and then you don’t care.

Even if you were given a new car, your ineptitude behind the wheel
would result in it being a beater in no time. Perhaps if you learned
how to drive you wouldn’t be running into everything. You might
consider slowing down in school zones; you might main or kill some
poor kid. Is that why your car has so many dents in it? You’ve been
mowing down kids in your trailer park?

–

"Laura Bush Murdered Her Boyfriend" brags of it’s homosexuallity:

the guys at the bath-house stopped laughing at my 3 inch weenie.
: http://groups-beta.google.com/group/rec.autos.driving/msg/168e8e621dd...

Joshua Calvert <joshua_l_calv…@hotmail.com> demonstrates his lack of understanding of the terms "sarcasm", "irony", and "hypocrisy":
Poor rightard, forced to whine about an 40 year old event.
Message-ID: <Xns970A68202F1C5joshualcalverthotmai@68.6.19.6>

Only for thoughtless whiners (like you, apparently).

>I have a great idea for this. Stores should charge a quarter for the
> use of the cart. Then refund the quarter when you return the cart to a
> designated stall. Most are such penny pinchers, they would definately
> return the cart. Some may even grab other carts.

Aldi’s does that.   There are still carts all over their parking lot.

- Hide quoted text — Show quoted text -

Probably
(a) they’re all out of puff after removing the outermost packaging and
protective styrofoam from large or bulk purchases and strewing it
around,
or
(b) the remains of their spilled or half-eaten food-court items have
left the cart too icky to deal with.

In some instances it is complicated by
(c) the person who has traffic backed up halfway to the street while
waiting for someone to leave Just The Right Parking Spot is making
things too crowded and dangerous to get back to the cart area.

>  It just happened that he left the empty cart at a handicap spot.

Well, he *meant* to push it halfway up the curb right in front of his
own car like everybody else, but the sidewalk was already full of other
shopping carts.

Anyway, it’s good hard data for the social sciences.  How far is too
far to go in extending courtesy to others in a public place?  About
twenty feet on average, is my guess, if you’re pushing a shopping cart
at a big-box store.

Don’t even get me started on the people who abandon their dead
batteries, bleach bottles of presumed-toxic petroleumesque
who-knows-what, old tires, or in some cases their entire defunct car
(not to mention the ever present diaper)…

–Joe

> I have a great idea for this. Stores should charge a quarter for the use
> of the cart. Then refund the quarter when you return the cart to a
> designated stall.

That’s how it works at virtually every supermarket here in Toronto. Each
shopping cart has a little chain-and-slot device on the handlebar. There’s
a key at the end of the chain, which is just long enough to reach the next
cart when the cart has been nested into another cart. To obtain a cart,
you put a quarter in the coin slot, which pops the next cart’s key out of
your cart. When you’re finished with your cart, you put it in the stall,
and put the next cart’s key in your cart’s keyslot. Pop! You get your
quarter back.

There are almost never stray carts in the car park.

>What system is that?

The cart is chained to the cart in front in the cart stand. To release it, you
must put a local coin worth ($1-$2) in a slot. To get your coin back, you return
the cart to the cart stand and plug it back into the cart in front.