Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Why are shopping carts always broken?

cnn.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

31–40 of 272 posts

Re: Why are shopping carts always broken?

#31

Post by leviathant »

mc32 wrote: post #8
leviathant wrote: post #5

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Horrible people is certainly one way of describing the population of an area with extreme income inequality.

What’s income have to do with how you treat a shopping cart? I’ve been to in places in Asia with very poor (poor compared to the poor people in the US) people and they treated their shopping carts better than wealthy people in the US. There is better social cohesion and respect for other people's property. Now, there are some oddities in that if they find you lying on the street hurt, most will pass you by and kind o…

>What’s income have to do with how you treat a shopping cart? I’ve been to in places in Asia with very poor (poor compared to the poor people in the US) people and they treated their shopping carts better than wealthy people in the US.

Would you say the difference in income in the places in Asia that you're describing were on the same level as in Manhattan?

There are very poor parts of America where people take more care of shopping carts, there are very rich parts of America where people take more care of shopping carts. But a thing happens when you have a notable population of mentally ill homeless people living on the same streets that New York level wealthy citizens also use. The person I replied to is from Texas, where they round up inconvenient people and either bus them or fly them to other states - including New York. That's certainly one way to level out the income inequality in the region.

>There is better social cohesion and respect for other people's property. Now, there are some oddities in that if they find you lying on the street hurt, most will pass you by and kind of look at you quizzically, but they also do have good samaritans, just not as many.

On that note, comparing "places in Asia" to New York, you're going to also have to factor in the effects of (presumably) thousands of years of culture, vs barely four centuries in a rapidly developed melting pot of capitalism.

But this is a lot we're typing out in response to one person's weird conjecture. My point is that I think it's distasteful for someone from Texas to be giving a blanket statement that people from New York must be horrible people. If they spent any time in New York, with New Yorkers, I would hope they'd have a more informed view.

Re: Why are shopping carts always broken?

#32

Post by tzs »

MBCook wrote: post #21
puzzledobserver wrote: post #10

I don't use shopping carts because my groceries typically fit in a shopping basket. What I find frustrating about my local grocery store is when they inexplicably rearrange items. One week, bread is stocked in one aisle. Suddenly, on my next trip to the store, the same brand of bread has moved two aisles over. Part of the reason why I switched to having groceries delivered.

A year or two ago my grocery store got rid of hand baskets. Now you can only choose between a short cart, a full cart, or holding everything in your arms. I hate it. They’re not bringing them back, I’ve asked.

Did they get rid of free plastic bags at checkout earlier?

I ask because some Walmarts got rid of hand baskets. When they stopped providing free plastic bags at checkout there was a big rise in people carrying their purchases out in the hand baskets and then not returning the baskets. Those stores often decided to stop replacing the baskets.

I would not be surprised if the same thing happened at other stores.

Re: Why are shopping carts always broken?

#33

Post by dtgriscom »

MBCook wrote: post #21
puzzledobserver wrote: post #10

I don't use shopping carts because my groceries typically fit in a shopping basket. What I find frustrating about my local grocery store is when they inexplicably rearrange items. One week, bread is stocked in one aisle. Suddenly, on my next trip to the store, the same brand of bread has moved two aisles over. Part of the reason why I switched to having groceries delivered.

A year or two ago my grocery store got rid of hand baskets. Now you can only choose between a short cart, a full cart, or holding everything in your arms. I hate it. They’re not bringing them back, I’ve asked.

That's nasty. If I expect my goods to fit into a hand basket, I grab one. Better maneuverability in a crowd.

Re: Why are shopping carts always broken?

#34

Post by FireBeyond »

pixl97 wrote: post #22

This article doesn't seem to actually answer the question well... If you want to see the problem, watch carts being put in the cart storage pens and watch carts being returned from those pens to the store. A very small percentage of the carts will end up in pens off kilter, then pushed in by the entire line of carts behind them. This bit of pressure can bend the wheel attachment. Now you say "this is only one or two…

The other part that affects things is the locking wheel to deter theft. All that does is make the person taking the cart drag it, flattening out that wheel.

Re: Why are shopping carts always broken?

#35

Post by ravetcofx »

freddie_mercury wrote: post #25
justsomehnguy wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Do people in other countries buy paracetamol and aspirin in 10L bottles so they wouldn't need to run their F4999 trucks to a drugstore every week?

Most countries have laws limiting the size of paracetamol & aspirin bottles to reduce overdoses & suicides. The UK passed a law in 1998 about it and saw suicides from overdoses drop 21% and liver transplants from paracetamol poisoning drop 66%. "Numbers of tablets per pack of paracetamol and salicylates decreased markedly in the year after the change in legislation on 16 September 1998. The annual number of deaths fr…

Many countries have laws limiting the size of vehicles and weight for non-commercial licenses too :)

Re: Why are shopping carts always broken?

#36

Post by daemonologist »

Rapzid wrote: post #7

I very rarely encounter broken shopping carts. Maybe once in like 20-30 visits I encounter one with a wobbly front wheel that pulls.

Interesting, my experience is that almost all carts get the job done* but have a small amount of pull, usually insignificant enough that it can be compensated for by pushing out at one end of the handle. My recollection is probably biased but it seems pretty rare that I get a "perfect" cart. Might be down to the different stores having different carts and maintenance approaches.

*this one fact probably goes a long way towards explaining why they don't get fixed

Re: Why are shopping carts always broken?

#37

Post by justinclift »

dtgriscom wrote: post #30
freddie_mercury wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Most countries have laws limiting the size of paracetamol & aspirin bottles to reduce overdoses & suicides. The UK passed a law in 1998 about it and saw suicides from overdoses drop 21% and liver transplants from paracetamol poisoning drop 66%. "Numbers of tablets per pack of paracetamol and salicylates decreased markedly in the year after the change in legislation on 16 September 1998. The annual number of deaths fr…

What are the limits? (Asked as a US guy who buys the 500 x 500mg bottles at BJ's.)

Interesting. How long does one of those bottles last for you?

---

In Australia, the regulating body for that stuff announced new limits back in 2023. They'll apply from Feb 2025 onwards:

https://www.tga.gov.au/news/media-releases/tga-makes-final-d...

* reduce the maximum size of packs available for general sale (e.g. supermarkets and convenience stores) from 20 to 16 tablets or capsules

* reduce the maximum size of packs available in pharmacies without the supervision of a pharmacist (i.e. ‘Pharmacy Only’ packs) from 100 to 50 tablets or capsules

* make other pack sizes of up to 100 tablets or capsules available only under the supervision of a pharmacist (‘Pharmacist Only’ medicines).

Those limits don't seem all that different from the existing pack sizes commonly on shelves though. So there's very likely some existing limits around pack sizes already.

Re: Why are shopping carts always broken?

#39

Post by rafram »

RecycledEle wrote: post #2

The percentage of shopping carts that are broken tells you about the character of the local population. The article's byline credits Eva Rothenberg, whose LinkedIn lists her as living in New York City. There must be horrible people there. Here in Waxahachie, TX, there are almost no broken shopping carts, and people help when there is a broken cart.

People in New York City don't use shopping carts too often. Fewer people own cars and drive than in Waxahachie, and they tend to go shopping more frequently and buy less at one time. I doubt that this was a story based just on the author's own experience in NYC - we've all dealt with wonky shopping carts! Waxahachie looks nice, but you should visit NYC sometime. It's a cool city and I think you'd learn a lot about the people and be less likely to write them off as "horrible" if you visited.

Re: Why are shopping carts always broken?

#40

Post by tzs »

I've been impressed by the carts the few times I've shopped at WinCo. Their carts always seemed to be fantastic.

I've been extremely annoyed by Walmart carts. The carts themselves are usually fine once I get one separated from the rest. It's the separating them that is annoying.

When a cart has other carts nested into it from behind, that raises the back flap. The two straps on that flap that are used to strap in small children when they are riding can dangled down through the grill of the flap on the nested cart. The clip on the end is big enough that if it twists at all it can get jammed in that nested grill, and the carts are then stuck together.

If you don't realize that the strap is caught and just think the carts are pushed tight, pulling to loosen them wedges the strap clip in very tight. Then you need to reach under to lift the bottom flap to relieve some pressure, while trying to un-wedge the clip. It's awkward and although I've not yet done it it looks like it is possible you get get an annoying pinch if you let go of the flap at the wrong time.

Post reply on HN