Well, do you? Only if the corral is less than X feet away? In that case, will you park to ensure that you’re within X feet of the corral?
Yes, I do; and I have been known to pick a space based on its proximity to the corral. (The supermarket that I visit most regularly has a parking lot on a slope that’s damn close to being a hill, and I’m generally not interested in pushing the empty cart any further than I need to.)
Yes, always. Stray carts are an annoyance for grocery store patrons and staff alike , so I try not to contribute to the problem. I always scope out the nearest corral when parking and tend to park 3 or 4 spaces away if I can. Close enough that returning the cart is only a short walk, but far enough away that a carelessly released cart has less chance to dinging my car.
I actually stopped shopping at an otherwise fine grocery store because in the huge parking lot there were only two or three corrals. Parking there was always a game of dodge-the-cart.
Yeah, I usually make the effort since it’s not that big a deal really.
I do notice though, that sometimes all the spots immediately adjacent to the corral are filled with carts. I guess people figure they’re doing good if they get the cart into the near vicinity of the corral at least.
Hell, yes. This is a pet peeve of mine. Lazy, lazy, lazy people bug the living hell out of me.
Yes, every time. Sometimes I’ll even walk it back inside the store and put it with the other carts - not just near them, but turned around and pushed onto the front of a row of other carts. Many times, a store employee has thanked me for it.
People who can’t be arsed to push a buggy for 50 feet so somebody’s car won’t run into it, or because they think they’re entitled to leave it where it lies, ought to have something nasty happen to them.
I’d hate to be one of the guys who has to go out to the parking lot to round up shopping carts. I’d develop a real hatred for my fellow humans in short order!
Always! Always! Always! It’s not nice not to return carts to the corrals. Mothers hang their heads in shame when their children do not do so. Do you want that on your head? Do you want your mother bearing the shame of someone who did not bring her child up right? Well, do you? No? Then march that shopping cart over to that corral.
I return the carts about 98% of the time. If I do leave it in the lot I try to put it where someone else has already left a cart. I figure the employees appreciate it, and they provide the corrals for this very reason and therefore expect people to use them. The other 2% of the times are when I am in too much of a hurry and the corral is more than 100 feet away. I don’t like doing this, but sometimes I’m too rushed to bother.
Always. Some knucklehead rammed my car with a cart a few months ago, left a big scratch and I was steamed. One thing I’ve noticed, and wonder about - why do the stores provide plenty of cart corrals close to the front of the store, but if you have to park farther out in the lot there are NO cart corrals? Since that a$$hole rammed my car I’ve tended to park farther out in the lots, and there is no choice but to hike way back to the front with my cart. Is that just in my area, or all over?
I usually park near a corral so I won’t have to take it too far. At the grocery store (as opposed to Target or something), I get help out to the car–now that I have two little kids with me all the time, I feel entitled, which I never did before. So the clerk takes the cart back for me.
Yep - unless it’s closer for me to walk it back into the store, in which case I do that.
There are days that I don’t particularly want to, but I get irritated with people leaving them in the lot, so I figure that if I don’t, even once, I’m just contributing to the problem.
I do my best. Annoys the heck out of my husband, because most of the stores we shop at don’t have corrals. Or they are far from the car (small lot, heavy shopping time, no spaces).
I stopped about a week before I delivered my son, started up again when I started slinging him more.
If not the corral, then the sidewalk in front of the store where the other carts are. For the life of me, I can’t understand how someone can be devoid of a sense of personal responsibility that they can just leave a cart in the middle of a parking lot where you know, people have to park.
I think there are more and more people who just don’t care at all about other people on this planet. “I’m done with this cart, I’ll leave it in the middle of the lot; I’ve eaten the candy, I’ll throw the wrapper on the ground. I can’t be bothered to take 30 seconds out of my life to make life easier for others. I am all that is important on this world. GRRRRRRR (can you tell it is a pet peeve of mine?).”
I’ve seen the wind blow a cart 50 yards to crash into a car. Yes, I take 'em back.
Also, as an act of defensive parking, when I first park, I grab the cart nearest my car, and take it up to the store. If a space is surrounded by carts, I don’t park there. Some folks won’t hesitate to nudge a cart when they pull in, denting your car. :eek:
Perhaps because I drive a car of reasonable size, I often get a very good parking spot at my regular grocery store because I can safely get into a spot where some idiot has left a cart. I then grab that cart and push it into the store to use. I always return my cart to the corral and am retentive enough to grab other carts as well.
<slight hyjack>I hate people who leave garbage in the shopping carts!<end slight hijack>
I do use the corral if they are strategically located or I will return the cart to the store, if I don’t have to push it half way across the parking lot to do so. If I don’t use it, I make sure that the cart won’t roll and it is not blocking the parking space.
mad monk: although there are only two corrals at my local store, between all spaces (noses) are cement barriers where carts can be parked w/o damage or runoffedness.
Or people park them on the grass barriers to keep off the runaway cart problem.
I either take them to the corral or back into the store.
Absolutely. It’s incredibly rude not to.
Always!
Nothing irked me more than when I came out of my grocery store to see a woman leave her cart at the main entrance not more than 10 feet where the majority of the idle carts were lined up. What the heck is up with that! Why did she find it impossible to push that cart ten more feet and park it right? There was no one approaching the store who might appreciate having a cart out and ready for them and it was so close to the wheelchair ramp that a gust of wind could have sent it carreening into the sloped parking lot. I took her cart as she left and noisily pushed it to where it was supposed to be. I hope she got a clue! :mad: :mad: :mad:
Yes. In fact, just yesterday when I went to the store I went to pull into a parking spot and there were two carts sitting there. I stopped about halfway into the parking spot, but the car in Park, got out and moved the carts to one side, carefully parked next to the carts, then put them together and pushed the two of them to the “corral”. Rather annoying, but not worth getting worked up over …