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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.

Stephen Shankland Former Principal Writer
Stephen Shankland worked at CNET from 1998 to 2024 and wrote about processors, digital photography, AI, quantum computing, computer science, materials science, supercomputers, drones, browsers, 3D printing, USB, and new computing technology in general. He has a soft spot in his heart for standards groups and I/O interfaces. His first big scoop was about radioactive cat poop.
Expertise Processors, semiconductors, web browsers, quantum computing, supercomputers, AI, 3D printing, drones, computer science, physics, programming, materials science, USB, UWB, Android, digital photography, science. Credentials
  • Shankland covered the tech industry for more than 25 years and was a science writer for five years before that. He has deep expertise in microprocessors, digital photography, computer hardware and software, internet standards, web technology, and more.
Stephen Shankland

There are any number of amusements to be found on Google Maps, candid images of the world captured by Google's car-mounted cameras, but I couldn't resist passing this one along.

It looks as if southbound on Merchant Street in Pittsburgh, Pa., is a lousy spot to have a camera mounted on a stalk on the roof of your car.

Open the link above and click the forward arrows. You can watch as the car heads toward the low-clearance bridge, then see the view go askew, then see it corrected again, apparently because the camera was remounted correctly.

Or you can watch the drama unfold in the screenshots below.

Google Sightseeing, which collects entertaining Street View moments, also found this case of a Street View car getting stuck in the mud in Australia.

(Via Paul Buchheit.)

Here comes the bridge. screenshot by Stephen Shankland/CNET

Whack. The camera no longer points forward. screenshot by Stephen Shankland/CNET

Now the camera flopped backward to show to the car's rear window. screenshot by Stephen Shankland/CNET

Whew! The camera is restored to its rightful position. screenshot by Stephen Shankland/CNET