Has Your Car Been Hit by Shopping Trolley? What are your Rights?
Whenever you drive to your local supermarket to do your usual grocery shopping, then you should be thinking twice when using the carpark. Besides looking for that scarce parking spot, you should also be looking out for the loose shopping trolleys that have been left behind by lazy inconsiderate shoppers who refuse to return them to their bays.
If you are from Melbourne, you know very well it can be very windy in some days. Often times I have seen shopping trolleys rolling off on their own from the force of the wind or just by the gravity if left standing on a mild slope. Often these runaway trolleys end up crashing into other parked cars causing damage, crashing into people causing injuries and even rolling out onto the street causing cars to crash.
Now imagine that you've parked your car in the carpark, walked into the shops to do you shopping, then return to your car and you find a shopping trolley resting against it that resulted in scratches to the paint, a dent or broken lights. Firstly, your muscles tense followed by your bodies rising temperature from the fury. That would be precisely what you feel.
Now if that were to really happen to you one day (hopefully not), then here are some tips for you to take action. Yes, you can file a legal claim against the supermarket themselves if the actual culprit who neglected to return the trolley could not be identified.
Liability of the of the person who used the trolley:
If the person who failed to return the trolley can be identified, then this person is liable as they have a duty of care to ensure the trolley does not cause harm or damage to property. If you can prove that the previous person was negligent in securing the trolley, then this person could be liable.
You should contact your insurance company to report the incident if your car is damaged. They cover most of the cost of repairs depending on which policy you have. They may pursue the responsible party for the reimbursement. Best to speak to them over the phone first for advice rather than submitting the claim online. If you submit a claim directly and your insurer is unable to pursue the ones responsible, then you may have to pay the excess, and the cost of your insurance premium may increase. Remember that insurance companies are about profit and don't like paying out claims.
This one would be the most important as this is both proactive and reactive. For the proactive part, be vigilant when using any shopping carparks. If you notice a few loose shopping trolleys around, then you know you're asking for trouble if you still choose to use that carpark. To see many trolleys loosely standing around in the carpark can indicate 2 things; the shopping trolley collectors are either too few in numbers or just lax and it indicates the type of people in the area too. Try parking on the street away from the trolleys if you can. It may be a bit longer walk, but it is still better than finding your car damaged by a trolley when you return.
For the reactive part, if your car is damaged by a shopping trolley, then don't touch it! first take a photo of the trolley against your car, then remove the trolley and take photos of the damage itself. If the carpark has CCTV cameras, you can request footage of incident to track the person responsible.
Supermarket Responsibility
In some cases, the supermarket may have some responsibility if they failed to provide adequate facilities for securing trolleys or if their staff were negligent in managing the trolleys. This would be more complex to prove. You could increase your chances by taking photos of the loose trollies in the carpark for a few visits to help prove the negligence from the supermarket.
Aldi have minimized this type of risk by adding the coin-lock feature on their trolleys that encourage shoppers to return the trollies to their bays to retrieve their coin.
If the big supermarket chains such Coles and Woolworths implemented similar types of locks on their trollies, then our carparks would be less hazardous to our cars. This would also save them costs on hiring trolley collectors and losing shopping trollies altogether.
If these big supermarket chains can afford to inflate prices on groceries, then they can afford to upgrade their trollies.
Has your car been hit by a runaway trolley?
Source: Has Your Car Been Hit by Shopping Trolley? What are your Rights?
