Old Tech thread

Vladd67 said:
I used to have one of these stuck under the dashboard of my car back in the late 80s in case I needed petrol but hadn't got my wallet. How far would you get with £5 worth of petrol these days?
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1964, Jet 90(?), four shillings a gallon. I could fill the tank of my father's Morris Minor for £1 and travel approx 200 miles.
 
Ursa major said:
The trolleys at the supermarkets around here require a pound coin to release them for use. I keep an old-style pound coin in the car for this purpose.
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So you pay a pound to use a grocery trolly? Do you get that back or is it some kind of tax?
 
Parson said:
So you pay a pound to use a grocery trolly? Do you get that back or is it some kind of tax?
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The coin acts as a deposit.

The trolleys waiting to be used are linked together with a short chain.

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Placing the pound coin into the slot, or tray, provided, releases the chain. When one returns the trolley to the trolley park, one reconnects the chain and gets one's pound back. I don't know about the US, but in the UK, trolleys weren't always returned (and could find themselves dumped by the side of the road, in bushes or in streams/canals).
 
Ursa major said:
The coin acts as a deposit.

The trolleys waiting to be used are linked together with a short chain.




Placing the pound coin into the slot, or tray, provided, releases the chain. When one returns the trolley to the trolley park, one reconnects the chain and gets one's pound back. I don't know about the US, but in the UK, trolleys weren't always returned (and could find themselves dumped by the side of the road, in bushes or in streams/canals).
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When these were first introduced it took just 20p and many kids made money helping people take their shopping back to the car and returned the trolley to get the money back. Then it went up to a pound and that killed that money making scheme.
 
It's simply a way of encouraging you to put the trolley back in the trolley park, so that you don't just leave it in the parking space next to your car, after you've put your shopping in the boot.(trunk).
The pound coin, or as mosaix says, a plastic coin of the same size, is not enough to stop you stealing the trolley to push your groceries home. (Anyway, youd also be taking the pound coin.)
 
I think the coin deposit requirement is one of those "nudge" things, i.e. something that nudges people into doing the right thing. There will always be those who won't/can't be nudged, but there'll be enough of those who will be nudged such that it makes the coin lock cost-effective for the supermarket.
 
A nearby pub to me often has big barbecues in the summer.
They have the classic half an oil drum for the charcoal and use the sides and bases of shopping trolleys as the grill.

At one side of the yard is a steadily growing mound of trolley wheels/handles etc and the burned through older trolley sides, at the end of summer they take these to the scrap metal man.

I've never been there when it's happened but allegedly they've said at times "will someone go for another trolley? Two free burgers if you do"
 
And thieves like this are one of the reasons that prices in supermarkets keep going up: a wire shopping trolley costs about £150.00 to replace.

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There are plenty in the canals and rivers. I've helped pull a few out...

...In a David Attenborough voice: Regardless of the danger, they are mostly found close to the footbridges. The abundance of space also attracts them to public parks and to the edges of retail parks where they congregate together for protection. The high kerbs here present them with their greatest challenge yet. With a shoal this big the trolleys need to isolate into smaller groups, and with no known predators they still have the advantage. However, when the retail park opens in the earlier morning. Automobiles! Their arrival changes everything....
 
Not an ad, but a satirical comment from the early 19th century. One of the child-sized hangers turned up on the Antiques Roadshow.

George_Cruikshank_-_The_Happy_Family_A_Quiet_Hint_to_the_Wives_of_England_(engraving)_-_(Meist...jpg
 
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