Your children shouldn’t drive shopping carts like “maniacs”.
Ford is yet another product that was inspired by modern safety technology. The Blue Oval now has its self-braking shopping cart. We aren’t kidding.
According to Ford, the new product is designed to ease the burden on parents who shop with their children. Ford even produced a video in which parents talk about how difficult it can be to shop at big supermarkets while their children are running wild. It’s difficult to control children who get the trolley. They can’t see through it and they drive it like a madman.
Ford’s self-braking trolley is Ford’s solution. It’s basically a shopping cart that has pre-collision assistance technology. This system is based on Ford’s electronic assistance systems for cars, and it uses a sensor to behave like a vehicle. The system scans for objects and people in the vicinity and applies brakes automatically if a collision is detected.
Tanith Carey, a parenting expert, says that parents often fear shopping at the supermarket because they have to do a job and children just want to play. Children love to follow adults and feel more in control. To their minds, pushing a trolley is like being behind the wheel of a car with long, wide supermarket aisles serving as their racetrack.
We can’t deny that this is true. It’s always fun to drive shopping carts around large supermarkets. But, we need to be careful. Ford’s self-braking shopping trolley is a prototype at the moment, but it is nice to see that the manufacturer is trying so creatively to promote its assist technologies. Ford, keep it up!