How many times have you had to nurse scraped heels due to a fellow shopper rather paying attention to the items on the shelf than to the other shoppers around them? The American automobile manufacturer Ford has taken notice of the all-too-common injuries and mishaps that occur in supermarkets around the world on a daily basis, and is now equipping special trolleys with tech usually reserved for their cars.
Using Pre-Collision Assist technology – a type of tech that comes standard with most of Ford’s latest models – the “Self-Braking Trolley” uses a sensor to scan ahead for objects and people, helping the trolley to brake automatically when a potential collision is detected. This is quite similar to the tech used in new Ford models, which employ a forward-facing camera and radar to look for cyclists, pedestrians, vehicles and other objects. Should the driver not heed a warning to stop, the car automatically brakes.
The Self-Braking Trolley forms a part of a series of Ford Interventions, which uses automotive expertise to address a range of day-to-day problems.
Says Anthony Ireson, Director of Marketing Communications at Ford Europe, “Pre-Collision Assist technology can help our customers avoid accidents or mitigate the effects of being involved in a collision. We thought that showing how similar thinking could be applied to a shopping trolley would be a great way to highlight what can be a really useful technology for drivers.”
Is a self-braking trolley a little over the top? Ask that to your heels or toes the next time they’re smashed into or run over. There’s no word on whether we’ll see the tech-equipped trolley in our own supermarkets anytime soon, but you can check out a video of this marvel of domestic prowess below.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IqrDFWmehDU