Are you suggesting that the cart removed it's self from the rest of the carts and then hit the OP's car? Ignorant response.
First - the reason you dont leave your kid in a closed car is because if you're in Houston its most likely hot as **** in it. Second - I'm a healthy, able, kid less male and i leave the cart right next to my car when i leave bc i dont give a ****
4 year olds are in a booster seat with a regular seat belt, and my kids could get out of the full harness car seat by age 2 That said, I completely agree its no excuse not to put a cart in a location where it can runaway and hit someone else's car.
Friend of mine penned this animation for a collision company. Seems slightly relevant: https://vimeo.com/58564315
No, the whole point is that sometimes people leave out carts for a reason and that reason, in this thread, happens to be parents not wanting to leave there kids unattended in a car while they put back the cart. Is it possible to leave your kids in the car and return the cart and the car not be stolen/something happen to the kids = yes. Can something bad happen in that brief time you're returning the cart = yes Is it possible to keep your kids in the cart and return it and take them out(even with multiple kids) = yes. Is it possible for some parents being not able to do this = yes.
It has also been said in this thread that at least one poster leaves his cart out simply because he chooses to.
What if somebody steals the keys from your hands, or the key malfunctions or a car hits you. The odds are not high that these things will happen but why take the risk with your children to the sake of a shopping cart? There are better ways to handle the risk. 1. Ask someone for help. 2. Do as Fishbilb suggested 3. ...and the best solution, by far, B-Bobs solution. Seriously, why are ya'll dogpiling on the guy?
In Sweden you have to put a coin in a lock on the shopping cart. If you want your coin back when you are done you have to put your cart back and lock it in place. I never see carts in a parking lot in Sweden. It is easy and effective yet costs nothing.
These cart corrals were invented in my lifetime. When I was a kid, all the carts were all over the place. Somehow, society did not implode. I think the corrals are great, and if one is close enough by, I'll put my cart in it. If the corral is too far away, the grocery store messed up or didn't allot enough budget or something. I don't consider it my responsibility anymore to walk the distance to put the cart away. The store can either have a cart boy come get it, or invest in more corrals so all the parking spots are served. Now, I will generally set the cart so it won't roll away, by hooking it over a curb or parking block, or kicking the wheels in different directions. But, if for some reason it rolls after I'm gone, I don't consider it my responsibility at all (since I have not been malicious, negligent, or grossly negligent in my parking of the cart). The store holds the bag for what goes on in its parking lot. The social pressure of coralling your cart vs the social pressure of never ever not even for a split second leaving your kids alone especially in a car. I think the not leaving the kids alone wins in the head-to-head. The condemnation one gets for allegedly being a bad or neglectful or even abusive parent is worse than what you get for potentially dinging someone's car, and by a couple of orders of magnitude. (And that's before we get to the anecdotes of people calling CPS on their cell phones to report unattended children.) Besides that, it's probably good practice to be completely overboard and have a zero-tolerance policy of never leaving young children alone. I've lived through it, and the weight of having to always be within a proximity of your child is always on your mind, which means you'll probably never forget. You'll be struck by the incredible lightness of being if you find yourself outside without some kid on your hip or being pushed in front of you. That lightness of being will remind you that you left the kid in the back of the car, and you shouldn't go into the movie theatre or whatever without taking them out.
Wait nevermind, browser issues haha. That showed up as about 2000 pixels wide when it loaded. I am the amateur.
We are rediculous . . . what people are saying is true. You are too lazy to supervise your kids and return the cart. You have admitted to these facts. There are multiple solutions to your problem that you reject. That makes you lazy and every other person that doesn't return a cart lazy (kids or not). If you can't properly return the cart, don't get one in the first place. If you can't deal with your kids at the store, don't take them. Europe has a much better system. You have to deposit a couple of dollars for the privilege of using a cart. You only get your money back when you return the cart to the corral. Problem solved.
That was in Houston back when I was a kid at the Auchan grocery store on the beltway (It was later a Fiesta and now maybe out of business?)
If you don't want to leave your kids in the car for 30 seconds to the corral then have them go with you to the corral and then let them walk back with you. If your kids meltdown because you go put a cart away then it sounds like you have more problems than just carts.
We have the same system but where everyone pays the cart monkeys to collect the carts. The workers are too lazy to actually collect the carts, what makes you think fat ****s will do it for a quarter? I hate loose carts, my car got bashed a few years back and I started a thread here just like RJ. Costco is the worst. People just prop them up over the curb on the grass or put it in front of the cart return and then they stack up with the return area completely empty. Blaming the 5% of people not wanting to leave small children in a car is dumb.