Living in London

With plans to make a big pot of Bulgarian Beef Stew this weekend, I set off to my local grocery store with a shopping list a mile long. Normally I would simply pick up a hand basket but this trip called for a trolley (aka shopping cart).

Although the American and UK versions of trolleys serve similar purposes, they are actually designed quite different. On the positive side, I was thrilled to find that all of the trolleys at Waitrose were equipped with a clipboard dashboard. Downright ingenious — even if I am too tall to read my list without bending over.

I wish I could say that the same ingenuity had been applied to the design of the wheel systems. For reasons that escape me, ALL of the wheels on UK trolleys are free to rotate (see picture—note sideways wheels). This is simply daft! When all of the wheels pivot, it makes the cart eminently harder to steer. It requires constant force to keep the cart heading in a forward direction and turning the corner at the end of the aisle feels like you are being flung at the end of a tether. Pulling the cart is out of the question, unless you are keen to bump the displays on both sides of the aisle.

On shopping carts in the US, only the front wheels pivot for steering while the back wheels are locked in the forward position. Pushing (or pulling) the cart requires a little energy in the forward direction and turning corners is a simple matter of twisting the cart to point in the new direction. How could such a good idea not make it across the pond?

Of course, the US carts are the size of a small SUV but that is a subject for another post . . .