I always walk by this one grocery store and always see shopping carts lined up just before the end of the parking lot as it seems people really think the signs stating the wheels will lock is just to deter you from trying, but how does it work? My only guess would be magnetics but even then I still have no idea how that all works but I find it oddly interesting.
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EDIT: Just to add on, I live in Ontario Canada. Not all businesses have this sort of thing but a lot of the bigger companies do. And yes, they are in fact real, I’ve tried to push one before, those things don’t move AT ALL once they’re across the line! Quite interesting.
In: Technology
I’ve always just assumed that they don’t, given how many carts I see in random places from grocery stores who claim this to be the case, and also from using shopping carts for years and never seeing anything on them remotely capable of stopping a wheel on a caster.
I worked at a business with a lot of outdoor property when I was a kid, and we had a sign that said something like “smile you’re on camera” so people would know there were security cameras. There weren’t. It was just cheaper to make a sign than invest in cameras that people would probably ignore anyway. Customers (mostly kids) would ask me where the cameras were, and we would say they were hidden, and if you couldn’t see them, then they were doing their job. I don’t even think that made sense, 18 years later. Why would you hide a thing that is partly a visual deterrent to crime?
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