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Currently, there are many problems with store parking lots. One of them is shopping carts left everywhere, making it impossible to enter some of the best parking spaces. Another problem is trash. Those two problems are mostly because there is simply nothing to do with it. The only cart returns are
on the other end of the parking lot, and the only trashcans are at the store entryway. The final problem I will mention is those individuals who are too lazy to back out of the space and drive down the lane. They simply go over the lines, into another lane. Often, the lane is for traffic going the other way. This endangers both pedestrians, and other vehicles. It kills the flow of traffic that was designed, making getting in and out take even longer. I propose a solution to all three problems.
Put another "lane" in between each of the parking lanes. In this lane would be a conveyor belt. Regularly placed concrete or steel pylons protecting the conveyor belt would solve the problem of cars driving over the line. When a person got done with their cart, they would place any trash they may have in the cart, and place the cart onto the belt. A computer connected to the surveillance system outside the store would notice when a belt receives a large enough load of carts, and start it (I figure if computers are intelligent enough to use a regular CCD camera to look at a set of bowling pins 100 feet away tell which ones are standing, the technology exists to do this.) At the end of the line, the carts would be picked up and shaken into a bin, removing anything left in them. The bin would then move to a storage area, marked with the time, and left for a week. This way, if a woman were to leave her purse, it would not be thrown away. After the week was up, the contents of the bin would be destroyed. A sweeping device would pick up anything off the conveyor belt, so a person could deposit their garbage without having a cart. Before the belt starts, an alarm would sound. After a time delay for people to step away, gates would slide from the ground. There would also be an emergency stop button on the inside of every other pylon. Anyone who gets hurt after this is doing it on purpose. Hopefully, with some effort, this system would help to clear up most of the problems in parking lots.
I have added a terrible illustration. See link.
Low Quality Illustration
http://pg.photos.ya...nm=44bc.jpg&.src=ph
Might help you visualize exactly where the extra lane is. [fogfreak, Oct 05 2004, last modified Oct 17 2004]
[link]
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Women come back for purses directly. A phenomenon I have noticed. |
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So when the conveyor breaks down, the lot is exceedingly dirty and backed up. |
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Also, who pays for the damage to the vehicles that get smacked by gates or shifted on the belt due to bad parking? |
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[k_sra] Parking lots are already full of trash and backed up with carts with no conveyor. As for the damage of the moving gates, caution signs on the pylons. The store would also need a disclaimer. As for vehicles touching the moving belt, that would be impossible because of the gates, and also because of the pylons. |
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That's a fine illustration, fogfreak. In fact, that's what you should call it. |
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If you have conveyor belts, why can't customers use them to transport grocery bags to their cars? |
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[phundug] Because that would be a lot more complicated, it would require the belts to run pretty much all the time, it would require more space in the parking lot for the belts, since they'll be going both ways, there would be higher safety issues, and that's not the idea. The idea was a convenient, well-placed way to return empty carts, dispose of trash, and help the overall flow of traffic in the parking lot. Also, forgive me, but people need exercise. They HAVE to walk to the store, and back to their cars, and they really SHOULD return the carts theirdamnselves. However, they aren't going to do that. If all they had to do was push their cart a few feet from their car, and throw their trash that far too, they'll be a lot more likely to do it. |
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this is too good to be true... |
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The problem isn't the parking lot; it's the stupid lazy people. It would be way easier and cheaper to put garbage cans out in the parking lot, and hire more people to return the shopping carts, than to change the entire layout of stores and their parking lots, and build all of this extremely expensive mechanical equipment. |
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