h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

A number of supermarkets, particularly supermarkets in town, chain their trolleys together to prevent them from escaping, which they do, in the company of errant shoppers, to begin new lives as holders of paint pots, garden ornaments, and freshwater mud-coral reefs under bridges.

These locks are usually operated by pound coins in the UK, and release the trapped coin when the trolley is returned to the trolley rank. (Most of the time; occasionally a little persuasion is required).

Many out of town shopping centres in the UK have stopped using these locks, however out of town shopping centres in France still do so.

French trolley locks are usually operated by 10-franc coins. It is useful to know that the ten-franc coin has changed over the past 10 years, and many trolleys will accept either of the two sizes. The UK 2p coin is usually able to fool these trolley locks.

This is a useful thing to know, especially in Cherbourg, where if you plan to pinch the trolley to cart your cheap booze back to the ferry port, you will only lose 2p (Unless you are fortunate enough to find another trolley there with 10 francs in it, which might get you half a pint of beer on the boat).

Not that I recommend that you do steal trolleys in France; All french gendarmes carry guns you know...

Well, you learn something new all the time. Nice tip if I go to France...
Most of the supermarkets near me still use the old £1 device, though. Have they just given up on the locks near you, or the trolleys all together?

Most stores in Sweden uses these kinds of locks as well. Like the French trolleys, the Swedish trolleys accepts two sizes of coins, the 5 SEK and the 10 SEK coins. They started out with just the 5 SEK coins, but then the banks introduced a 10 SEK coin, so the dual-coin locks was introduced as well.
Lately, alot of stores have found out that people really likes to have something to unlock the trolleys with, without having to deposit a 10 SEK coin in the trolley, so they have developed a "key chain coin" that only works as one thing, and that's unlocking the trolleys. Well, most of the times, at least. Sometimes, the manufacturers of these fake coins doesn't get the sizes just right, so you have to use violence to get the trolley away from its friends. Or maybe they just don't feel like accompanying me... Hmmm...

I know the feeling... Shopping trolleys are very temperamental things.

Where abouts do you get these trolley tokens from? The supermarkets? Does the token fit all makes of trolleys?

You can get them in the funniest places. When I went to buy some paint to repaint my flat, I got one from the supply store, then you can get them as promos from newspapers and stuff. And of course, if you're the proud holder of a member card for a certain supermarket, they can occasionally hand some of these tokens out as well. Cause everyone knows that you lose an average of three tokens a year. At least if you believe the supermarkets and other stores that hand the tokens out.

Well, I never knew that.
So the tokens are all the same size? You don't need different ones for the different supermarkets?
Also, what are the main supermarkets there?

Nope, they're all the same two sizes. The 5SEK coin (slightly bigger than a 50p coin but round, not octagonal) and the 10SEK coin (pretty much the exact size and look of a £1 coin). All trolleys that has the locks mounted accept both those coins.

Almost all supermarkets are part of one of two large chains of supermarkets: Konsum/KF and ICA.
ICA is the Nordic region's largest grocery retail group with 4,600 stores in Norway, Sweden and the Baltic countries. Together with Statoil (50/50 split), ICA also owns and runs 1,500 petrol stations, together with their associated traffic stores, in Sweden, Norway and Denmark. *
Konsum/KF, the Swedish Cooperative Union, is owned by the consumer cooperative societies.**

Then there are some other smaller franchise stores, but nothing worth calling supermarkets.

* Blatantly "borrowed" from the www.ica.se home page.
** Blatantly "borrowed" from the www.kf.se home page.

I thought I posted this yesterday, but I must have pressed Preview, and then wandered off somewhere else.. Anyway, here we go again...

In answer to your question, all the town centre stores tend to use trolley locks, mainly because trolleys go walkabout otherwise. Tesco's actually chain up the trolleys at closing time too.

However, the out-of-town supermarkets don't use trolley locks. Tesco North Harbour in Portsmouth doesn't, but instead has some fancy metal grilles placed on the floor covering all the footpath and car park exits. If you try and push a trolley over them, the rim of the week drops into the slots in the grille, and won't go any further.

The grill pitch is similar to that used on metal escalators, which brings us neatly onto...

French escalator ramps..
A couple of the hypermarkets in France have trolley escalators, essentially a flat (not stepped) escalator, with the same metal surface that you see on normal escalators. Push the trolley onto it, and again the wheel rims drop into the grille and subber pads stuck to the side of the trolley wheels stop the tolley rolling back down the escalator, and pull it up. It gets disengaged by the 'comb' at the top of the ramp, thus allowing shopping and shopper to move between floors without all that tedious waiting around and making friends that you were previously forced to do while waiting for lifts (to quote DNA there).

Another nifty device seen around france is an hour-glass shaped light at all pedestrian crossings. This is a figure-of-eight shaped panel with a number of LED's in it, which give the appearance of sand running down. When it reaches the bottom, the lights change, thus saving you from risking death at the hands of the mad french motorist.

Clever so and so's the foreigners.

We have a travellator in the Ryde Somerfield which is a sloped escaltor from the underground carpark to the store - that's very useful. The hour-glass idea for the pelican crossing sounds useful too - but I find with the beeping ones you get a good idea of how long you have left to cross the road.

I find that when I go up to Yorkshire, they have completely different, and weird-sounding, supermarkets up there...

Chaining the trolleys to a wall at closing time is a very good solution. But what if the store is open 24/7 as alot of Tesco stores are today? Then they can't use the chain tactics. And up here in Scotland, there aren't any other devices to prevent the trolleys from taking off. I guess the trolleys are just very loyal up here and has decided that life here isn't too bad.

How many people seriously nick the trolleys? I doubt that many do, and you can always find them again by a river.
We once had a trolley in our front garden that someone dumped there, and it was from Safeways. We phoned them and said that someone had taken a trolley and left it at our house, but they took 5 weeks before coming around to pick it up, and about 7 reminders. I don't think they're really that bothered about trolleys.

I think you're right. I don't think they're too bothered about their trolleys, since there isn't much fun to have a trolley at home. I mean, how much use can a trolley be of outside the confines of the supermarket parking lot? Sure, it's practical to push things about in, but only if you're doing it on a paved surface. Trolleys aren't of very much use if the wheels keep burrowing down into the soft soil in your garden, are they? And due to the limited control of steering, they're not highly recomended as racing vehicles down steep, winding roads, or even steep straight roads.
Sure, it could always be fun to see how staff at Safeway react when you roam the isles with a Tesco trolley, but even that grows old after a while.

I've never tried that - I wonder if anyone would really notice, though? Most trolleys are trolleys... I guess some are different shaped, but I don't know how observant the staff would be.

That's probably why they get dumped - people get bored of having them, and they end up in the river, or perhaps back at the store.

I think what would stand out the mostif you brought a Tesco trolley to Safeway is that the plastic parts (ie the handle, advertising boards, shopping list holders) are blue on the Tesco trolleys and green on the Safeway ones.
But as you said, the staff would probably not even notice.
Hmmm.. I feel an experimentation quest coming about. Reactions will be recorded.

Well, let me know how you get on.

Okay, I was a little confused by the explanation of the trolley locks with chains, etc. that you have to put coins in to get a trolley- but it brought me to an interesting question. Must the trolley be returned to the same lock you got it from (thus getting the coin you used returned,) or can you return it to any lock? Would it be possible to fool the machines with one type of coin, and then get the other type from another lock (or even the sameone, if somebody else takes a trolley) thus making a profit on the transaction? Exchange rates would probably make some difference. Any thoughts on this from anybody?

Cheerio!

The lock itself tends to be located on the trolley handle, and so stays with the trolley as you push it round the supermarket. Any chain with the correct key will get out the pound you put in, but it will only accept pounds (or whatever the currency). Although you could I suppose fool it by putting in a £1 coin from Gibralter, Jersey, the Falklands or St. Helena etc instead of the UK, it wouldn't do any good as you'd get the exact same coin back that you put in originally.

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I have a dream that one day all trolleys will rise up and carry out the true meaning of its creed: "We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all trolleys are created equal."

I have a dream that one day by the red tills of Iceland, the trolleys of former corner shops and the trolleys of former supermarkets will be able to rattle down at the corner of the car park.
I have a dream that my four trolleys will one day live in a nation where they will not be judged by the colour of their plastic handles but by the contents of their wire baskets.

I have a dream today!

I have a dream that one day, down at Tesco with its managers having their lips dripping with the words of "every little helps" -- one day right there in Tesco little Asda trolleys and Waitrose trolleys will be able to join chains with Aldi trolleys and Lidl trolleys as sisters and brothers.

I have a dream today!

I have a dream that one day every trolley shall be exalted, and every hill and mountain shall be made low, the rough places will be made plain,(with wheelchair access) and the crooked places will be made straight; "and the glory of the trolley shall be revealed and all flesh shall see it together.",

This is our hope, and this is the faith that I go back to the South with (‘appen as like as not, ey up chuck).

I have a dream – I have invented a simple key that hangs on my key-ring. It is inserted into the coin slot, the lock opens and the key is ejected. The trolley is set free!

With this key, we will be able to hew out of the trolley park of despair a stone of hope. With this key, we will be able to transform the jangling chains of our trolleys into a beautiful symphony of trolleyhood. With this key, we will be able to work together, to queue together, to self scan together, to go to customer services together, to stand up for free trolleys, knowing that they will all be free one day, and left wherever we like.

A fine dream - perhaps one day we will see it come true.

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