Photo by Derek
On Tuesday morning around 11:15am, blog reader Derek walked by a Google Maps car parked on 6th Avenue near Clement. He’d seen it parked in the neighborhood a few times, but this time, the passenger side front window was smashed.
Luckily SFPD was just up the block, arresting a man in an apartment building at 310 6th Avenue.
“I saw them detaining a suspect who tried hiding behind one of the cars inside,” Derek said. The cops were mum on the suspect’s alleged offense, but confiscated a duffel bag.
After Derek drew their attention to Google-gate, the SFPD began searching the the Google Maps car to determine damage and what had been taken (a laptop).
As they were going through the car, the alarm finally started going off. D’oh!
Sarah B.
Photo by Derek
Photo by Derek
it’s been parked on 6th for a couple of weeks…..
Nothing yells I GOT A COMPUTER better than a Google wrap and a giant camera on the roof.
This car is usually parked in a driveway right near 6th and Clement. I always see it with the camera mounted on top of it. I’ve never seen it parked on the street. I’m pretty certain that camera is very expensive. They need to probably put that car somewhere else. If Google can spend the money on the camera, which probably costs more than 10 of those cars, then it can surely afford to pay for the driver to put it in a paid parking garage somewhere overnight on a daily basis, and have the car driver/occupant commute to the parking garage to pick it up daily. I would highly recommend this, as it’s only a matter of time before something much more horrible than this happens.
One useful feature for a self-driving/operating car (and I know this is just a plain old car with a camera on top) might be to have it automatically retract the $$$ camera before driving into a low-clearance garage door. (Yikes – it’s as tall as it is expensive!) A more directly useful application might be for it to drive away before it gets broken into.
I see this car parked on the street on 6th near Smart and Final all the time. I am not surprised it is a target for break ins. Too weird.
Why is it parked there at all? Are they monitoring your WiFi connections? Is Google collaborating with the NSA?
The car has been parked there because the driver lives in the neighborhood.