Google Street View Car Gets Into Accident

While the conveniences provided by Google Maps are too numerous to name, its costs were made abundantly clear on Wednesday as a Google Street View driver slammed into another car in Arkansas, causing over $3,500 of damage and possibly a set of bruised ribs. According to police, the 29-year-old driver went the wrong way down a one-way street, tried to make a U-turn, and sideswiped a Mazda. The accident left the Google car without a bumper, and the driver of the Mazda, 22-year-old Dylan Case, says he might have to miss three weeks of work due to neck and back injuries.

The incident was reported in Little Rock. According to police, the Google driver made a wrong turn on Tyler Street, which is one way, and attempted to turn around. But halfway through his U-turn, he collided with the Mazda, which was passing through an intersection on a perpendicular street. Case, who was borrowing the Mazda from his girlfriend, alleges that the Google car “must have ran the red light” at the intersection while attempting the U-turn, since Case himself had a green light.

The Mazda, which Case described as “fuckin’ totaled,” suffered an estimated $2,000 in damages, while the Google car will cost about $1,500 to repair. Case went to the hospital after the crash, and claims to have been outfitted with a neck brace and diagnosed with bruised ribs and whiplash.

This isn’t the first time a Google car has wreaked havoc on the Street View beat. In Indonesia in 2013, a single Google Street View car embarked on a brief reign of terror, slamming into parked truck after hitting a minivan while fleeing another minivan that he’d crashed into earlier. Google apologized for “any damage caused” by that incident which, unlike Wednesday’s fender-bender, didn’t result in any injuries.

According to Case, the Google driver told him that he “was sorry and that he was gonna lose his job.” He added that "something better come out of Google's pocket for this."