GB2301563A - Single axle trolley for carrying a child and a load - Google Patents

Abstract

A trolley 10 for simultaneously transporting an infant and a load, such as shopping, comprises a frame 18 having a single axle 12 with wheels 14,16, and a stabilising foot 32. A crossbar 36 on the frame 18 includes lugs 38 for carrying a shopping bag or basket 40 on one side of the axle 12, and includes apertures 46 and locking pin 48 for mounting a baby car seat 44 on the other. When the trolley 10 is tilted prior to manipulation, the weight is counterbalanced about the axle 12 by these loads.

Description

Improvements Relating to Hand Operated Wheeled Vehicles This invention relates to a hand operated wheeled vehicle provided with a handle for manipulation by the user.

As will be clear from the following, the wheeled vehicle is for the carrying of loads including shopping loads, but it also has a secondary function of being adapted to carry at least one infant or baby. With such arrangement, the mother or a relative or minder of the baby or infant can perform shopping tasks without having the worry of the infant (if it can walk) wandering off and becoming lost, or indeed being snatched, as has unfortunately happened frequently in the past.

Even when the infant is a baby, by providing that the infant stays with the vehicle whilst the parent or minder performs shopping tasks, an eye can be kept on the child while performing the shopping task.

The vehicle is on the one hand a shopping trolley, and on the other hand is a babv/infant carriage. It is therefore a composite vehicle, but for ease of description, it will be referred to hereinafter as a shopping trolley.

It is of course known to provide vehicles which are infant or baby carriages on the one hand, and can accommodate shopping on the other hand, but these vehicles tend to be designed primarily as infant or baby carriages which require to be vehicles which in free standing arrangement are in stable equilibrium and usuallv comprise a pair of axles carrying four wheels on which the vehicle stands.

Because of this, these vehicles are somewhat large, and the majority of the vehicle is given over to supporting the baby or infant, so that there may only be for example a holding basket for a relativelv small amount of shopping, usually to the rear of the vehicle.

The instant invention seeks to provide a shopping trolley capable of holding a baby or infant in a particularly effective maanner enabling the carrying of the maximum amount of shopping whilst providing a vehicle which is relatively small, and is capable of effective manipulation by the user.

In accordance with the present invention in a general aspect, the shopping trolley is of a type having an axle with wheels at the respective ends thereof, so that the trolley can be manipulated, in a fashion similar to a conventional golf trollev, about this axle only, and the trollery is designed for carrying shopping and a baby or infant basically to opposite sides of this axle so as to provide a counter balance between the weight of the shopping and the weight of the baby or infant providing ease of manipulation in a relatively small sized space.

The trolley may comprise basically the axle and a frame mounted on the axle, said frame being provided with manipulating handle means, and on the one hand mounting plates (hooks or the like) for receiving a shopping bag, and further baby seat mountings carrying or for carrying a baby seat.

In a particularly effective example, the mountings for the baby seat are designed so as to receive a baby seat of the type which is a baby seat for a car and which is normally mounted inside a motor car, but is removable and attachable to the mountings on the mounting trolley.

This particular embodiment of the invention is extremely useful insofar as if a mother goes shopping in her car, which is a common practise nowadays, she can take her baby in the car while supported in the baby car seat and put the trolley frame with the axle and wheels in the car boot. When she arrives at the shopping destination, she firstly removes the trolley frame and wheels from the car boot, duly provided with the shopping bag on the shopping bag mountings, and then removes the baby and car seat from the car and simply clips it onto the trolley completing the assembly.

The trolley with the baby can then be wheeled to the supermarket on the pair of wheels, similar to a golf trolley arrangement, and then the mother can complete her shopping whilst having her baby in close attendance and under her watchful eye at all times.

It is appreciated that the shopping bag or shopping receptacle instead of being connectable to and de-mountable from the trolley frame, maybe integrallv secured or connected thereto and indeed in some embodiments the baby seat may be integral with the frame, but it is much preferred that the trolley be adapted for use with a car baby seat as described above.

When the car baby seat is applied to the trolley frame, it may be held thereto by any simple mechanical means such as a locking pin or locking pins which engage removably in apertures in the frame and in the seat which become aligned upon assembly of the seat upon the frame. These baby car seats conventionally are moulded components provided with rim flanges, and the rim flange may form the fastening means for connecting the baby seat to the trolley frame.

The trolley frame may have a leg stand on which the trolley rests so as to be free standing when not being wheeled, again in much the same manner as a golf trolley.

The design of the frame and axle geometry will be as close as possible to an arrangement wherein during manipulation of the trolley when it carries the baby or infant and a bag of shopping, will be such that the centre of gravity of the baby is to one side of the vertical passing through the axis, whilst the centre of gravity of the bag of shopping is to the other side of said vertical providing a counter balance effect. It is appreciated that it is difficult to obtain a complete balance arrangement but the basic trolley design would have this arrangement as an objective.

The trolley frame may be comprised of tubular chrome plated steel members consisting basically of a spine member which extends upwardly from the axle and at its top end has a handle grip.

Extending from the spine member is a shoulder bar which lies at right angles thereto, and defines mountings for receiving the shopping bag to the rear of the spine member, and a side open channel member for receiving the flange of the baby car seat to the front of the spine member.

An embodiment of the invention will now be described, by wav of example, with reference to the accompanying drawings, wherein: Fig. I is a perspective view showing the trolley frame and axle, the baby seat and shopping bag being shown in dotted lines diagrammatically; Fig. 2 shows the trolley with the baby seat and shopping bag connected thereto, in side elevation, and when the trolley is free standing; and Fig. 3 is a view of the arrangement of Fig. 2, when in the course of being manipulated on the trolley wheels.

Referring to the drawings, and firstly to Fig. 1, a trolley 10 comprises a single axle 12 carrying at its end respective wheels 14, 16. The axle rotatably carries a frame 18 comprising a lower Ushaped portion 20 of which the ends of the legs are mounted on the axle, a curved base portion 22 which extends forwardlv and then curves rearwardly from the centre of the portion 20, and an upright spine portion 24 which extends from the rear of portion 22 upwardlv and curves into a handle portion 26 on which is mounted a manipulating rubber or the like handle 28.

Welded to the front of the curved lower portion 22 is a support bracket 30 having a support leg 32 and cradle member 34 which is an open channel portion.

Between the spine portion 24 and the handle portion 26 is welded to the frame a cross bar 36 having at the ends thereof rearwardlv inclined carrying lugs 38 which are designed to receive and carry a shopping bag or basket 40.

To the front of the bar 36 is provided an open channel bracket 42 which is open forwardly to receive a member of a baby car seat indicated bv reference 44 in Fig. 1.

The upper and lower arms of the channel member 42 are provided with apertures 46 for the receipt of a locking pin 48 which is connected to the cross bar 36 by means of a retention chain 50.

The functioning of the trolley will be somewhat understood from the previous description herein, and from the illustration of Fig. 1, but it might be briefly mentioned that the shopping bag 40 can be readily attached and detached from the trolley frame as can the seat 44. In fact the seat 44, which is provided with a baby or infant retaining harness 52 is normally used in a motor vehicle, and the user simply detaches the seat from the vehicle and clips it into position on the trolley using the brackets 34 and 42 and retaining the seat to the trolley by means of the pin 48.

If reference is made to Fig. 2, the completed assembly is shown, and it will be seen that the seat 44 has a U-shaped frame 54 which has a portion which fits into the retention bracket 42, and the pin 48 as well as passing through the apertures 46 and bracket 42 also passes through an appropriate aperture in the frame 54 to lock the seat to the trolley frame.

Fig. 2 shows the trolley when provided with the seat and the shopping bag and in the upright position. The centre of gravity of the seat and its occupants lie to one side of the vertical passing through the centre of wheels 14, 16, whilst the centre of gravity of the bag 40, including its contents, lies to the opposite side of this vertical making the assembly very stable. The foot 32 serves as a stabilizer keeping the assembly in the upright disposition when it is not being manipulated.

Fig. 3 shows the position of the assembly when it is being manipulated. The foot 32 is off the ground by virtue of a slight tilting rearwards of the entire unit, but the unit is designed so that the centre of gravity of the seat and its occupant on the one hand lie to one side of the vertical axis through the wheels, whilst the shopping bag and its contents centre of gravity lies to the other side of said vertical.

The entire unit therefore forms an essentially stable and easily manipulable unit which is of minimum volume as it has only axle and one pair of wheels.

Its use is extremely simple insofar as the user simply extracts the car seat from the motor vehicle and clips it into position on the trolley frame and the reverse procedure is followed when the user returns to his or her motor vehicle.

The counterbalancing of the weight of the seat and its contents against the weight of the shopping bag and its contents to opposite sides of the wheeled axle is an extremely effective utilisation of the trolley frame, but the concept of taking a baby car seat from a vehicle and clipping it onto a trolley frame is in itself a novel invention regardless of whether or not the trolley frame is equipped to receive a shopping bag, because the trolley frame can be made relatively simple and inexpensive as can be seen from Fig. 1 and the design and construction thereof makes use of the fact that a baby car seat can be extracted from a motor vehicle and placed simply onto the trolley frame.

The baby seat can be designed to hold two (or more) babies or infants.

Claims (8)

CLAIMS.

1. A trolley provided with an axle having an axle with wheels at the respective ends thereof and a frame attached to said axle which rests in a substantially upright position and which is tilted about said axle immediately prior to manipulation characterised in that the frame is adapted to carry a first load substantially in front of the axle and a second load substantially behind said axle when the trolley is in the upright position so that in the tilted position said first and second loads act as a counterbalance about the axle to stabilise the trolley.

2. A trolley according to claim 1 characterised in that the said first load is ideally a baby seat with baby therein and the said second load is ideally a shopping receptacle with shopping therein.

3. A trolley according to claim 2 characterised in that the shopping receptacle is integrally secured to the frame.

4. A trolley according to claim 1 or 2 characterised in that the frame is provided with attachment means which secure the first and second loads thereto.

5. A trolley according to claim 4 characterised in that the attachment means to secure the said first load are adapted to receive a baby seat of the type which is a removable baby seat for a car.

6. A trolley according to any one of the preceding claims characterised in that the frame is provided with a leg stand on which the trolley rests in the upright position, in order that the trolley be free-standing when not being wheeled.

7. A trolley according to any one of the preceding claims characterised in that the said frame is provided with manipulating handle means.

8. A trolley according to any one of the preceding claims characterised in that the frame is constructed of chrome-plated tubular steel.