Trapped Trolleys Transformed

From the ABC:

For a number of years itinerant shopping trolleys have been appearing around the streets of Alice Springs. In river beds, parks, storm water drains and street curbs, the trolleys have become a fixture of the town's landscape.

One man has been leading the fight against rogue shopping trolleys. Mal Crowley appeared on ABC TV's New Inventors with his feral cat trap which was made out of shopping trolleys.

The accompanying video is funny, although it's a pity he has so many trolleys to use as raw material.

Crash Course In Trolley Collection

We've already talked about how abandoned shopping trolleys are dangerous - and would it seem to Coles is about to learn how expensive it is. This story is from October 15, 2008:

A BAYSWATER man is considering suing a giant supermarket chain after a car crash he believes was caused by a stray trolley left on a road at night.

The man says he has suffered continuing health problems since the accident.

His complaint comes in the wake of an outpouring of anger from Knox residents, upset over trolleys left dumped in their streets.

Craig Davies and a work colleague were travelling to the city for a business meeting at 7.30pm on June 25 when he suddenly saw a shopping trolley in the left lane of busy Burwood Highway.

Mr Davies said he swerved to avoid the trolley, smashing into the car in front of him, which in turn crashed into the car in front of it.

Lock and Load

It's amazing what fun you can find online.

Today I found this great piece on the poor an abused shopping trolley written in January by Louise Evans of The Australian:

THEY are unloved, abused, beaten and abandoned, yet we can't live without them.

They are the 21st-century equivalent of a donkey but even a beast of burden gets better treatment than the shopping trolley.
A television advertisement for NRMA Insurance was banned by the Advertising Standards Bureau because it showed boneheaded boys having shopping trolley races on a rooftop carpark and smashing their four-wheeled fun machine into a brick wall. Viewers complained the ad breached safety standards by showing "morons how to damage vehicles in car parks".

What about the damage to the shopping trolley? Just collateral.

A young mum with two nappy-wrapped screamers strapped in the back seat jumped out of her monster four-wheel-drive in fright after hearing a bang as she backed out of a small-car spot in a shopping centre car park. "Thank God it was only a trolley," she sighed as she pushed the offending tangle of metal in the direction of the escalator.

It's no wonder they all have wonky wheels, missing backs and mangled sides. The shopping trolley ranks lower on the food delivery chain than its equally abused and abandoned cousin the milk crate. At least you can sit on a milk crate.

Like all good piece of writing, there's some strong facts and figures to emerge:

• Woolworths says it loses 150,000 shopping trolleys a year to theft and damage
• It costs supermarkets $50,000,000 a year to keep shopping trolleys in adequate number in good repair

Wouldn't it be easier for shopping centre management and supermarkets to insists all trolleys have token operated locks?

Dangerous Trolleys Taken By Drunken Jerk

Theft of shopping centre trolleys may not seem like much of a crime - after all, it's just 'borrowing' a trolley to move groceries home, or to a cab rank or bus stop.

Well, as previously observed, loose trolleys are a magnet for other criminal acts such as property theft and vandalism, as well as dangerous stunts like Olly who has posted a two part 'comedy' video on You Tube.

Here's Olly's description:

This is a short guide to stealing a trolley, along with some suggestions on what to do with your trolley once aquired.
First, find a suitable supermarket thta would house a good deal of trolleys. Failing that, occasianally one may find a trolley down an alley or to the side of a poorly conditioned road.
Secondly, lift said trolley into a suitable pushing position, as many trolleys may be found on their side ot even completely upside down.
Thirdly, once your destination has been chosen, usually ones household or a nice big lake, push the trolley to this destination by placing your hands on the handlebar, and pushing in the desired direction.
Some extra tips:
Don just steal the trolley and then dump it...trolleys can be great fun when rode down a hill, or a steep road. Watch out for cars and other fun obstacles though!
Be creative...try new and inventive places to leave your trolley. You never know, you could even get artistically recognised.

While it might argued that Olly's stunt is a satirical look at what happen to unsecured trolleys, the video titled "Drunken Shopping trolley madness at the Monument Newcastle" certainly is not:

Theft On Wheels

In researching the hazards and problems surrounding shopping trolleys, I came across this interesting paper called Preventing retail crime by Susan Geason and Paul R Wilson and published by the Australian Institute of Criminology in 1992.

Here's what it had to say about supermarket trolleys and crime:

Loss of shopping trolleys
Shopping carts have a way of disappearing, especially where customers walk to the store instead of driving.

In Australia shopping trolleys cost about $200 each and most supermarkets have about $25,000 worth of them at any given time. About 5 per cent of all supermarket shopping trolleys disappear (personal communication, Australian Supermarket Institute 1991).

Shopping cart corrals: Supermarkets have dealt with trolley disappearances in a number of ways, for example many stores have installed barriers to keep carts at the customer loading zone in front of the store, though this does not stop all trolley theft.

Some markets allow customers to take carts to their cars and send employees out to scour the neighbourhood for carts people have taken home; others offer rewards for finding lost carts.

Cart corrals allow people to use carts however they want, but encourage them to return them on their own. This is how they work. A customer walks over to the cart storage area and puts a coin or a token in a device that has locked a cart to the cart in front of it. The first cart is then freed and the customer can use it in the store and the parking lot. The customer's coin is returned when he or she pushes the cart back into the cart corral.

Although that report is quite a few years ago now, I don't believe the facts will have changed over much. It's a pity that such an obvious solution, identified 16 years ago has not resulted in universal action.

Funny because it's true

This from Phil Mir from 4BC:

It's true people. The metal frames in shopping trolley's create a magnetic field that interferes with the part of your brain relating to short term memory.

I have discovered this after much research and observation in a variety of shopping centres. The phenomenon seems to occur immediately after the shopper has loaded their groceries and ceased all physical contact with said trolley. Dazed and confused they are unable to locate or return the trolleys to the allocated trolley bays being forced instead to leave the trolley abandoned in the carpark.
Others have become so disorientated that they wander the street in search of a place to leave their metal framed friends. Another disturbing result of this phenomenon is that it completely removes the memory of how difficult it is to steer one of these fully laden beasts.

People who not 5 mins ago were struggling to navigate this chariot of destruction are now totally oblivious to the plight of their fellow shoppers and will aimlessly walk straight towards these trolleys seemingly unable to change direction. Thus forcing the already frazzled shopper to slip a lower back disc trying to manoeuvre themselves around these poor unfortunate souls.

The same thing seems to apply to babystrollers and prams, though as most of these are made of plastic I may need to research further.

So next time you are trying to navigate your weekly grocery load around the streams of people walking mindlessly in a straight line, unable to change direction. Do not get angry .It is not their fault. There is a power involved here which is beyond the realms of normal human understanding.

Trolley Dump 5

A lovely, tree line shade street, children arriving home from school - a sweet suburban scene marred by two abandoned shopping trolleys that are more than half a kilometre away from the nearest supermarket.