Local Shopping Cart Decommissioned; None Injured

LONGVIEW— A 50 ft stretch of Hawkins Pkwy was temporarily blocked off Friday morning after a motorist struck a derelict shopping cart that was blown into oncoming traffic. The motorist, Otis Johnson of Gladewater, 56, says he was en route to the local Recycling Center to cash in on his weekly stores of collected soda cans and scrap metal when the runaway cart crossed paths with his '85 Chevrolet Celebrity. Mr. Johnson, who currently holds only 6 moving violations to his 50 year driving tenure, maintains there was no chance of avoiding the cart.



"One minute it wasn't there, the next minute it was," Johnson said. He added he was approaching speeds of up to 45 mph, though eyewitnesses later indicated a much slower speed. The cart rolled under the moving car and was completely destroyed. "I feel pretty bad about that shopping cart. Not too bad about ol' Betsy though, she's been around the block a couple of times." When contacted about the liability of the damage, Mr. Johnson's insurance company, Insure-All, declined to comment.



The shopping cart in question was found to be the property of an adjacent Toys R Us. Store manager Mike Syzlowski formally apologized to Mr. Johnson and issued him a store coupon and a five dollar gift card as a sign of apology and good will.
"We're certainly concerned about the safety of motorists, but feel very unfortunate about the loss of such a good cart. It had been with this store going on twelve years."