By any reckoning, most trolley bays are no more than 40-50 metres from the car parked the farthest from them.
Forty-fifty metres, golly, gosh, even an old dude like me can walk it in less than 30 seconds.
So why is it that about 10 to 20 per cent of people put their shopping in the car and then leave the trolley there and then- wherever that happens to be.
It could be in an empty car parking spot, or it could be the footpath to the shopping centre, it doesn’t matter, this trolley isn’t going to the trolley bay.
In some of the smaller car parking lots, such as Eagle Vale shopping centre where I was earlier today, the trolley bays are no more than 10 cars away, as the picture above shows.
And yet the parking lot was full of trolleys abandoned by someone who thought a 20 second walk was beyond them.
Maybe there is a link here to people who drive down the breakdown lane when there’s a traffic jam on the Hume Highway.
You know, the tail gaters who are so close you can smell their after shave.
Now though, I am stumped as to whether the trolley bludgers are also the breakdown lane drivers or the rubbish dumpers who spoil our beautiful bush land areas because they’re too lazy to break up a cardboard box and put the pieces in the yellow bin.
Might as well throw in the impatient shoppers at the checkout queue who are breathing down you neck completely oblivious of the need to social distance.
These people obviously have much more important lives than the rest of us and just haven’t got the time for the niceties of society such as returning a trolley to a bay or being patient in a checkout queue.
There could be a trend emerging here or maybe it’s all in my head.
All I know is that doing the right thing as much as possible makes the world go around a lot smoother.
Imagine if everyone left their trolleys where they emptied them, if we all drove down the breakdown lane, if we were all impatient at the checkout queue – I rest my case, Your Honour.
It’s not only the car parks that people leave trolleys, they are left outside houses, in parkland, lane ways, on roads etc. I don’t know how many I’ve reported to Camden Council because they’ve been thrown into Lake Annan. And don’t get me started on the rubbish!
OK, I’ll admit to not always putting mine back, because one of my big, paranoid worries is that I’ll put the kids in the car, load the groceries and then somewhere between walking from my car to the trolley bay and back, I’ll be hit by a car and my kids will be left sitting on their own in the car and no one will know.
If the bay is a couple of spaces away or the carpark is not busy, I’ll put it back, but otherwise I’ll find somewhere near my car to leave it, where it won’t roll into someone’s car.