safety awareness - supermarket trolleys

[bsac15]

Hi!
I've only ever posted here - so that's why I'm starting this here!

Today we had a 'nasty shock'.

We were leaving a well known DIY store, two children - one trolley.
Used a toddler/baby seat trolley.
Couldn't get a Parent n Toddler space so had used regular parking space.

Positioned trolley on pavement (a good 8-10inch back from kerb), in front of the car.
Put brake on trolley. Lifted out toddler to put into the car.

Trolley rolled away with 10mth old baby in it, toppled off the kerb, tipped up and over.

Luckily, Baby was adequately strapped in and didn't touch the ground.

Although the brake had seemed to worked - it failed when the wheel was in-line/ direction of travel.

Complained to Senior Store Manager (Me in floods of tears, Baby smiling), who checked trolley and confirmed the fault. Filled out an accident report.

He rang me later to say they had checked all the trolleys and found another 3 faulty.

So my point is do not rely on trolley brakes working.

If we had been using a double toddler trolley, it could have had a different outcome .

Please, please, please double check those brakes.

Oh that is scary. Glad your baby is ok though.

Is the shop doing anything about it? Did they take your name and address? I'd write to their head office as well, just to be on the safe side!

Hi 5!

They told me they had sent accident form to head office.
And that they had removed faulty trolleys.

I pointed out that my job used to be investigating near misses and errors.

I suggested that they had some way of coding ALL their trolleys - because I could see NO identification on this particular trolley to say when it had last been safety checked.

He kept asking if they could do anything else for ME - I said no, I just didn't want to hear of it happening again.

I think he expected me to ask for compensation or a discount voucher or something!!! But I'm not like that.

I am a regular at this DIY store and I will thoroughly check all future trolleys!
Woe betide if I find a faulty one!

My Dh works for a well known DIY store (the orange one), and he says their trollies are equally dodgy

I would still write to head office though, regardless of them sending the forms off.