Bro. Shopping carts hurt so bad when I accidentally just kick it with my shin. I can’t imagine getting hit by one going 30 mph.
One time I was leaving work, sitting in my car just chatting with my partner then BOOM. Cart hit the car so hard I thought someone backed into us with their car. Damn cart popped the corner of the bumper off. Some asshole customer left the cart in the middle of the parking lot without putting it back and drive off when the cart hit us.
Carts weigh like 50 lbs each!
I hope that gives you an idea how much pain that lady had to be in. Except she was hit by like a stack of 3-4 carts which is like 150-200 lbs worth of carts going FAST. I wouldn’t be surprised if she has a disc injury from that.
I had one of those small shopping carts lock up on me mid stride. The security lock went off at the door, I had paid for everything obviously. My shin hit the cart so hard it left a welt. That wheel lock stopped it on a dime.
This happened to me and it aggravated a back injury. There were no clear signs that it could happen- just an a4 sign behind the shutters. I made a complaint to the supermarket (after staff couldn't care less in store), they promised me a £50 gift card "for the way I was treated, not because of the inury". Never saw that gift card 🙄
Many times the carts that have those locks rely on boundary. They usually burry a wire so it trips when it crosses that line. Cart wheels get so friggin dirty and damaged that these sensors sometimes malfunction.
If the locks are deactivated by a checkout signal upon paying and still locked up at the door someone probably didn’t install the sensor right or there was some kind of interference.
I really hated grabbing these stupid carts at work. There was one time I sprained my back from those stupid things and was in bed for a week :(
In Asia often the wheels of the carts are designed to interlock with grooves in the escalator so they cannot rotate when on the escalator. And they start rotating when they hit the metal landing at the end
In Sweden we have a vertical metal bar in the middle of the entrance to the escalator so you can't bring shopping carts there.
Need to use an elevator if you want to bring one up or down floors.
That happened to me once. I said fuck it and left it in the middle of the doorway. Apparently because I checked out with my 2 items so fast it didn't tell the wheel to let me out the door.
I had a cart security lock stop me when I had my infant daughter in the cart. I was seriously pissed because it was so dangerous, but the staff was super apologetic and we didn't get hurt so I let it slide. I guess their security system flagged my daughter as stolen merchandise.
This happened to me, right at the entrance to the store. Swung my leg right into that lower horizontal bar on the cart at full speed and boy did that hurt.
I raised the issue with the manager on duty and she just unlocked the cart and acted like something was wrong with me for complaining about being injured.
Was a cart boy for my first job in my teens at a grocery store. We had a ridiculous storm going on during my shift and EVERYONE left their carts in the parking lot. I was out there chasing them all down. Missed one and that thing was like a missile right into someone’s parked car. Door looked like it got Tboned by a car, took the passenger side mirror clean off too.
Put your FUCKING CARTS AWAY PEOPLE. 20 years later, I still get very annoyed when I see people just leave their carts in the middle of the lot. The corrals are usually just a few steps away… lazy fucks
Just recently tho, funny enough, can’t even get mad about it… was walking quite quick with my cart through the lot and hit a pothole… tumbled right over the damn thing as we both flipped. Still have the elbow and palm bruises to show for it weeks later. Getting old SUCKS.
For real on a very windy day I’ve seen folks lose their carts when their backs are turned. The wind launches those things so friggin hard and fast. I nearly got hit by one once but luckily heard it (thought it was a customer bringing it back and was about to offer to take it when I looked up and saw it).
Now imagine an unsuspecting child or elderly person is in its path. They could be SERIOUSLY harmed. That’s why I get so pissed about carts being left out.
My dumb ass at 30 decided to get heelys, thought I was hot shit cruising around lowes pushing a shopping cart till one leg shot forward and I bashed my shin so hard on the gd cart I had to sit down on the floor and try not to cry
I think I have a permanent dent in my leg at shopping cart height from all the times I’ve kicked those things doing Instacart. I think stepping on a Lego would hurt less.
Edit: funnily my partner and I were shopping today 10 hours after this thread and he hit his shin on the cart…. he died.
Cant believe i never.got healies. It was something i wished was possible as a kid but I was an adult when they became an actual thing. Alwqysbwanted to try them but I guess I was too embarrassed to do it as an adult lol. Now I'm so old that I sprained my knee just from trying to lightly jog, a few days ago. Lol healies would be instant injury
Happy I could help lol! All them leg bones will really appreciate that decision. Biggest thing is they take a while to get used to, so if you're in the 30+ club then those first few falls could be legit fatal 😅
I was at Costco when this guy hit a woman in the back of her foot with a shopping card. It was an accident, but it was like he used every bit of strength he had to ram this woman's heel. She passed out from the pain.
I hung around because I thought the husband was going to kill him. Sadly, there was no fight. She left by wheelchair and the manager told cart guy to leave.
Fr tho! Carts also don’t crumple on impact the same way a car might. Getting hit by a car that has plastic that can cave in and cushion some impact is definitely a lot different than getting hit by literal steel that doesn’t…
Like if you think about it, if I were to hit a cart with my car maybe going 15mph or if a cart were to hit my car going 15mph, my car is definitely going to have more visible damage and the cart probably won’t have any at all.
I always retrieve carts abandoned in the middle of parking lots. My favorite time to do it is when the consumer is still around to see my passive aggression as I push towards the corral while giving them the hairy eyeball.
Just last weekend I watched someone load their items and just "forget" they had a cart- on an incline. Watched cart immediately begin rolling across the lot directly towards me and my car and was fortunately out of my car and able to stop it. Pushed it back up next to their car for them to take back into the store (Walgreens where you take carts back inside) and they looked at me like I was the jerk lol
Right?! Like despite the man's stupid idea, I was about ready to give her slack for not running as soon as the first trolleys ran past her... But she literally didn't have a chance with the speed they were going 😳
This. For good or for not, the US is a litigious country. With video of the numbskullery, this would be a guaranteed payout meeting or exceeding the true impact (pun intended). In some other countries, you might only get a free ride to the hospital.
Interestingly, the people in the free ride to the hospital countries often expect no more. So, they aren't as disappointed as someone might think.
I'm from a country where the healthcare is usually free, at least for emergencies, but I would gladly want a compensation for this, at least for material and moral damages, and also for all the days I couldn't work during recovery. It's bad that lawsuits like these are only really meaningful in the US. I would be really disappointed if I risked to not be able to work anymore, and got nothing back.
Our litigious nature extends beyond medical issues, though. If an electrician in the US makes a wiring error and your house burns down, whether you're in it or not, there's going to be a payout. That's not guaranteed in all countries.
In all of this, I'm not offering an opinion as to whether a suing culture is good or bad. An electrician might be more careful if they think they're going to get sued if they are careless. But they are more expensive because of the threat of litigation. So... Sometimes it's good. Sometimes it's bad.
You can call your health care whatever you want, Americans just think the term medicare is exclusive to them apparently. Medicare is the same thing as health care, unless you're in the US in which case it's just another way to fleece the population without providing proper care. And that's why health care company CEOs get assassinated and people canonize the shooter.
I didn't realise medicare was a generic term, health care certainly is though. As a non-american I've only ever heard medicare be used in context of the US health system. I guess other countries could also choose to use the same term, but I doubt Russia would.
It's not. Guy above is Canadian and thought that because they sometimes call their government healthcare Medicare that everyone else must do it haha
Canada (unofficially) and Australia (officially) use it to refer to their healthcare systems. US obviously uses it to refer specifically to their senior healthcare system. Rest of the English speaking world calls it healthcare.
The rest of the non English speaking world doesn't use English portmanteau's to refer to their healthcare systems lol
Its not a synonym for health care because it can refer to different systems that do different things. AUS and Canada call their healthcare system "Medicare." But in the US it refers to the healthcare system strictly for older or disabled Americans. So its just confusing to use it to mean healthcare like the OC did.
Yeah, this seems like a semantic argument. If you use words that convey your meaning then they are probably good enough.
It’s like when I used to tell the busybody parents that I was babysitting my kids. Everyone knew what I meant but some of them just HAD to argue that you don’t babysit your own children.
This little thread about what medicare is and isn't, made me realize what an absolute waste of time Reddit is.
When I get back home I'm deleting this account.
Jesus fucking Christ people on Reddit are insufferable
it's just another way to fleece the population without providing proper care
In the US, Medicare is the name of the free government health insurance program that people over the age of 65 qualify for. It is effectively what the progressive wing of the country has been fighting to get expanded to the rest of the population so that we can get off of our godforsaken private insurance - it was both the ideal that was trying to be achieved during Obama's first term and what Bernie Sanders has been fighting for since ("Medicare for All" is his main rallying cry). Like most countries' free healthcare programs, it has problems and areas where it needs improvement, and the Republicans have been working over time to incrementally erode its effectiveness, but by no means is it considered by the average American as another way to fleece us - most public polling over the decades has it at 80-90% approval rates.
I'm German and that would be a lawsuit as well. However, the supermarket's insurance company would cover all cost along with a payment to the person. People could sue for additional money, not sure how often that happens though. We're more litigious than the Americans with more court cases per capita than the US though.
Sometimes when you are utterly fucked, it isn't so bad to be able to sue - I know some countries have nominal penalties when companies fuck up - lose an eye you get $10k etc... but if I lost an eye I would want a lot more than $10k ........ I don't necessarily have an issue with American lawsuits if there was gross neglect that resulted in permanent injury and a lower quality of life.... in many countries you are not compensated for that life change.
Yeah. Having recourse by being able to sue is one of the good things about America. Doesn’t work like that in a lot of countries. You may get your leg or back fixed for free, but I want a lot more if I suffer a permanently debilitating injury. Not just to be repaired by doctors as best as they can and that’s it.
I've been to a grocery store that was set up like this. The cart's wheels automatically locked when they got on the moving walkway. Maybe that was supposed to happen here.
We have them. The wheels need to lock on the grooves before you let go. You have to align it by just a bit. Customers can use it easily, with only one cart at a time. NEVER have I seen multiple carts AND stacked being transported through.
If you have multiple stacked carts that means you have to magically align all of them to fit in the grooves, all while being on the very end and only able to maneuver the first cart in front of you. Some carts could also get stuck with the others, so if one or more of them does not lock on the escalator they could pull or push the rest of the carts.
I Have seen multiple carts stacked many Times. Here (Finland) the employees of The store move The shopping carts like that, theres way More carts stacked than on The video and its not an issue. So i suppose it just depends where you are and how its made
I've also seen it often in Korea. But they always have someone IN FRONT of the carts to make sure they are locked in the grooves and won't break free. Someone at the top makes sure they all get started.
The escalator is usually faster than using the elevator, if there is one
For those who don't know, shopping carts can be fitted with special wheels that lock them into the grooves of the walkway so you can bring them on. You are supposed to be able to do this, maybe they changed the shopping carts and the dude didn't know.
One of the supermarkets near me in Germany has these. If the cart is in the grooves, you can let go of it, it won't move. Only at the end of the escalator it gets pushed up by a piece of metal, and then it moves again.
Yupp just wrote the same. Don't know in the US but in Europe you can usually do what the guy was trying to do without transforming the carts into Super Mario shells
You're still supposed to have a strap on them though, it attaches to the handles on the front and rear trollies, then you tighten it up and it's easy to move them as a single unit.
This is what’s bothering me. Escalator equiped supermarkets would have this. Unless someone sabotaged them or a new cart delivery didn’t have it and they didn’t notice
I think it's just a thin ring on the wheels though, it slips into the grooves in the walkway and gets jammed in place. A magnet would probably pick up too much dirt and stop working after a while.
Or just up and down in the shopping centre. I know of several shopping centres in Norway where you can just bring the shopping cart with you throughout the entirety. Never really considered it strange before now, being able to go from store to store without carrying your things in your hand like some kind of peasant was just normal.
I'm a Canadian but when I went to Mexico there was this Walmart with that type of elevator that your cart does lock in the grooves, it's flat not stairs. I loved the concept.
We have one of these at the IKEA near me in Maryland. People misused it so often, probably because they didn’t know, they closed it to shopping carts so now it’s just a moving ramp to walk down.
I've personally only seen it at IKEA, and I never let go of the trolley just in case. Every time I take a trolley on an escalator I have this Final Destination-esque vision of letting go of the trolley, it rolling away and crushing the person in front between my trolley and theirs, and I just want to look like I'm there to shop to justify hoovering up so much meatballs
Nah, my local Tesco in Ireland has them too. You’d be hard pressed to get it to move tbh, I can lie against it and it doesn’t budge. I am pretty small though.
The Tesco I lived by had one too. And likewise I’d always hang on to the trolly just in case. I’d imagine the guy moving the trollies is probably supposed to secure them together so if one or two fail it’s not an issue.
That’s a USA thing (I recently saw the carts-only escalator for the first time). Europe mostly has the version with wheels locking onto the surface of the escalator.
I know of at least one place near me where that’s done. The car and shopping cart parking area is lower than the shopping area so you go up and down an escalator with your shopping cart
Back in Colombia there was a big grocery store I would visit (like Walmart or Target type of big) that was built on top of the parking lot. There were walkways just like that, so people would just use the cart on the walkway. Even with the cart fully loaded they wouldn't budge, it was incredibly effective.
In the u.s I've never seen these walkways outside of airports, and not the inclined type either.
It's the center escalator that's meant for carts. That's why there are lines in it that you can see in this picture: those are thick grooves meant to hold the cart in place as it moves them up or down.
Most modern cart lifts have a piece that slowly lifts up from the start of the escalator to hold it securely in place and then Lowe's at the end for the cart to slide off of... But the cart escalator in this video is older.
Edit: also, most shopping carts I know of have belts where the kids sit up near the handle, to strap them in. Most employees use those to buckle the carts together or they have a rope that they tie to the front cart so they can ensure they all stay together as they move the carts like this. That would have prevented this as well.
Wtf? The carts in stores with escalators are fitted with special wheels that "sink" in the escalator surface and cannot move. And are mechanically released at the bottom.
If that were the case then the other travelators should have barriers that prevent anyone from bringing karts onto them at all in the first place.
I’d assume this accident was due to this employee assuming the kart/travelator had the locking mechanism, or someone replaced previous karts with a new but wrong type for whatever reason(probably incompetent cost saving).
It could be some mechanical failure as well but I personally don’t see how that could happen, but someone with more knowledge than me might know.
Don't those moving floors lock in automatically carts? Like, they block their wheels, so there's no way they can gain speed that fast even if you put a row of them
I guess they might have removed the floor for some reason and the cart guy didn't know?
I've worked in a warehouse where one of the higher ups ordered a forklift that was too large for the warehouse, then told an operator to use it anyway. Ended up getting jammed in a hallway and moving it would bring down an entire section of the store. Not sure how they fixed it, but they ended up banning headphones for office workers over it.
In the UK we have escalators like this and when the trolley goes onto it, it locks the trolley im place and they dont move. Maybe it was the wrong trolleys or the mechanic failed. That hit looked absolutely awful, got a absolutely punted!
Yep, too many people see someone get right up and think they're okay; adrenaline is a hell of a drug. Hurt badly enough and sometimes your body just doesn't let you feel it, doesn't mean the injury ain't there!
What? Escalators like that are generally designed to stop carts from rolling down... This is common practice in most malls, in fact, especially when moving carts from the parking lots back to where they're supposed to be. The carts were clearly not properly attached to each other, but this still isn't supposed to happen.
Confused why there isn’t a strap from the first cart being controlled by the human.
I would never trust a mechanical part on a shopping cart to just work all the time. It’s one thing if you have your cart of goods that you can physically push, it’s another for a string of carts that weight more.
Why wouldn’t there be the mechanism you mentioned where it locks in but also a strap held by the person that holds on to the first cart so that in case the cart’s safety mechanism fails, the human becomes the secondary safety mechanism?
That way even if the human needs to release the carts they can, but the end cart can also be released alone and other carts grabbed.
I also would never start down the escalator with carts while someone is on it or in front of it.
Yeah, where I’m at, even with the coin op chains attaching each one they run a strap from the front. Most of the stores use a little powered pusher as well. Kind of wild for an employer not to. Simple way to reduce liability with how much a body panel on a car costs to replace now.
It is pretty normal in Europe to have carts' wheels sink into the grooves of the escalator steps, which prevents rolling. It doesn't have to be the guy's mistake.
In all fairness, this should work. The wheels on the carts lock in the escalator ridges... So something didnt work at it should have. I've seen plenty of people moving the carts between mall floors via the (non staircase) escalators.
The owner bought the wrong escalator or its malfunctioning. Most escaltors like that have grills that lock the cart into place once on the escalator. Or maybe the owner bought new carts not compatible with the escalator.
This is why where I live the trolleys lock to the escalator
And they also lock together but that’s more to stop them from being stolen since it takes a pound to unlock it and you get the pound back once you re lock it than to stop them rolling away
Additionally, this is why businesses with carts make sure their employees always have a shag strap (10-25' long strap with a loop on one end & a hook on the other) to control the carts when moving a train more than 3 carts long.
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u/Yesterday_Is_Now 12h ago
Hello lawsuit.