Comments on: Google Street View camera + low bridge = uh-oh

Google's car-mounted Street View camera sometimes captures the outside world's mini-dramas. This time it caught one of its own.

[sting7k]

Lol, that's just plain funny. I wonder what the engineers at Google first thought when they were cataloging this footage.

[edtmark]

There a lot of odd captures by the Google Street View, after a few minutes browsing around you'll be able to find more.

[Sparky672]

"I wonder what the engineers at Google first thought when they were cataloging this footage."

It's highly doubtful that anyone at Google could possibly review all Street View images prior to cataloging. These images are tagged automatically with GPS location & compass direction among a few other things I'm sure. It's simply a matter of dumping the photos into the database. It's also possible that the images are simply added to the database as they're acquired perhaps via a wireless or cellular data connection.

As far as the "incident" mentioned in this story: I'm not familiar with all the physical specifications of a Google contractor but isn't it entirely possible that the camera mast was automatically retracted? Seriously, I don't think a camera whacking into a steel bridge at even only several miles per hour is going to be taking too many pictures afterwards.

Plus there's no sense driving around with an upright camera stalk while traveling from the office to the various planned survey areas.

[rayzoredge]

K'thunk!

Good thing that mast is flexible.

[baracobomber]

It's more interesting if you go look at it sideways. As you go through the bridge, you'll see the arrows change form pointing left and right to pointing up and down.

[kenyan105]

I like the 'Report a Problem' link at the bottom... I wonder how much mail they get, seeing as there's way too many possibilities that a guy with a car-mounted camera will mess up...

[Sparky672]

After doing a bit of online research, I've come to the conclusion that this is a non-story. The contractor simply auto-retracted the mast down into the folded position and drove under the bridge.

For this to have occurred they way it's written, you'd have to believe the masts and heavy cameras are mounted to large spring pivots like old floppy CB whip antennas. Then this very sensitive 11-lens electronic GPS camera struck a solid steel girder at 5, 10, or 20 MPH without any apparent malfunction. Then it must have scraped along the underside of the bridge all the while not catching on gaps between girders ripping it from the top of the car. Then after emerging on the other side, it magically popped back up into the correct position and continued snapping pictures. Impossible.

The masts are not flexible otherwise you'd get unstable imagery flopping all around especially at high speed or windy days. Subsequent frames would not line up with each other.

This camera did not strike the bridge and mysteriously pop back up again unscathed. Anyone with fold-away side-view mirrors knows how much damage they can sustain even after slow speed impact with solid objects.

[garngadzooks]

Looks like the car used in the UK had a lower camera. It fitted upright under this bridge in Darnick Street, Glasgow, at 8' 6":

http://maps.google.co.uk/?ie=UTF8&ll=55.875877,-4.213976&spn=0,359.991717&t=h&z=17&layer=c&cbll=55.875954,-4.214059&panoid=u8icI3thUe5BYZNzjh9K6g&cbp=12,163.90538888106875,,0,5.699481865284975