If you’re not aware, Google has made the news again, but not in the usual way – this time, people have called them out for hitting/killing a donkey in Botswana with one of their Google Street View cars. While finding oddities with Google’s mapping service is a regular occurrence, striking live (or dead) animals with their company cars is not.
The story has already been pretty much dedonked, er…debunked…since donkeys and other large mammals like to roll around in the dust to cool off (I know I do). In the pictures, the car is moving FORWARD and the donkey is seen to be running away in the next shot. There are certain markers in each picture that confirm this – unless you are a conspiracy theorist and deduced that the car must have been moving in reverse and backed over the donkey without spilling a drop of blood or showing any disturbance in the tread patterns…oh, yes, I was CSI all over this one.
Not only that, but have you seen a Google Street View car? They’re not exactly made for ASSassinating Donkeys. There’s a MULEion other cars out there that are better at doing that. Sorry, I had to get that out.
Here’s the leading view for the Google Street View car – donkey in the dirt, cuz that’s how he rolls:
Next shot: donkey up and running!
Now, note the following details – the two stones in the road and the path leading off to the left:
Here are the two images overlaid (the second over the first) with each other – obviously, the car is moving forward (note the hood of the car and mirrors) and the donkey was aroused from it’s dirt bath and made it’s way off to the side of the road. The images don’t quite line up precisely as the car has moved and the perspective has shifted slightly (camera blur, etc.) – but you get the idea.
GOOGLE, YOU RUINED THAT DONKEY’S DIRT BATH – stop being evil, OK?
Images courtesy: [Mashable]