Well this is bit of a calamity. A Google Street View car driver crashed into a vehicle, then crashed into a second vehicle after fleeing the driver from the earlier crash. He fled again and then crashed into a parked truck. All while driving one of those vehicles with the slightly noticeable camera and Google logo.
From AFP:
A driver collecting video data for internet giant Google’s Street View feature in Indonesia slammed into two vehicles after trying to flee responsibility for an earlier crash, police said Saturday.
The Indonesian man had been driving a Subaru hatchback in Bogor district on the outskirts of the capital, Jakarta, on Wednesday with Google’s logo and a camera poking from the roof, when he hit a public minivan.
“He did accompany the minivan driver to the garage, but he said he was scared the repair fee would be high, so he got in his damaged car and fled,” Bogor district police operations chief Hendra Gunawan told AFP.
The minivan driver got in his vehicle, Gunawan said, and gave chase for around three kilometres (around two miles), before the Google car smashed into a second minivan.
“He tried to flee again, but soon crashed into a parked truck before he gave up,” Gunawan said.
The man, whom police declined to name, was detained after the third crash and taken in for questioning.
Had he just stayed put after the first crash, it apparently wouldn’t have cost him that much.
A police operations chief said, “He has been released and all the payments for the vehicles have been sorted out. The damage to the first one would probably have cost 200,000 rupiah ($17.50) to repair.”
Google is already dealing with some bad publicity over its Street View practices, after an appeals court recently ruled that the company’s intercepting data on open Wi-Fi routers can be challenged.
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Comments
Luckily, the Indonesian driver didn’t hit an elephant.
How does he do the rice paddies?
Is there a Google boat that goes along their waterways?
Google is going beyond just mail service … where you can probably direct a package to be delivered anywhere in this world.
You know everyone using Google never pays a penny! The money is in the data retrieval. Sort’a tossing out privacy right there. It’s a feature, it seems. Not a bug.
…and of course now we learn that if you allow an Android device access to your home Wi-Fi network, it reports your network password to Google and, we presume, the NSA.
Bizarro and strange. Occasionally entertaining.
Carol, you have not changed from your days at Althouse.
Oh yeah, the Google story is funny too.
At first I thought this story was about obama. Lotsa similar elements there. 🙂
Err…..well…..
It’s so much easier to trash an iPad.
Hax? It’s not like any data or connection is safe.
Believe it or not, I saw one of those trucks in our neighborhood once. I asked them what they were doing and they refused to answer. Called Google and got the same response.