Google Street View Car Destroyed In ‘La Tomatina’ Festival In Spain
The search engine giant has been rolling out its Google Street View cars all over the world, mapping out cities, taking shots of famous landmarks, but this time it made a huge mistake.
Recently, the Google Street View vehicles and their backpack camera versions have been capturing some of the more iconic scenes in Spain, including the famous Moorish Fortress, The Alhambra, and other emblematic sites.
As reported on the Inquisitr, they even made it possible for online viewers to experience the most dangerous footpath in Spain, “El Caminito del Rey,” without leaving the comfort of their computer chair.
However, as reported in the Mail Online, some bright spark decided it was a good idea to capture the messiest food festival in the world held in Spain each year, by taking their Google Street View car into Buñol in eastern Spain. They wanted to capture the essence of the famous “La Tomatina” festival this week.
This year’s “La Tomatina” attracted some 22,000 people from around 96 different countries to join in the messy madness. Needless to say, things didn’t go well.
El coche Google maps street view destrozado en tomatina pic.twitter.com/TXwY44TLU5 — José Mª Casany (@JMCasany) August 26, 2015
Tweet translation: Google Street View car destroyed in La Tomatina
For those not aware of the festival, a truckload of soft ripe tomatoes is driven into town and the residents then happily pelt one another until their clothing, bodies, and faces are covered in tomatoes, and the streets run red with the juice.
This was definitely not a good idea, as the Google Street View car headed right into the fracas Wednesday and was eventually virtually destroyed for its trouble, as can be seen in the image below.
Este es el coche de Google que pretendía grabar la experiencia de la #Tomatina2015. Pero la gente es así… pic.twitter.com/dAkWkvNAfN — Ainhoa (@noaanswers) August 26, 2015
Tweet translation: The Google Street View car sought to record the experience of the #Tomatina2015. But the people are so crazy…
The crowd, already excited at the prospect of bashing each other with tomatoes, went totally wild when they saw the Google Street View car in their midst. They happily pelted the vehicle with tomatoes and then jumped on the vehicle itself, causing no end of damage.
Apparently, the Google driver thought the worst of the famous food fight was over when they drove into town. The Local quoted a Google spokesman as saying, “The Street View team went to La Tomatina with the aim of collecting images after the tomato battle had finished.”
“Unfortunately, there were still some people around when we arrived with the car, which ended up trapped in the crowd and suffered quite a bit of damage.”
As can be seen in images uploaded to Twitter by onlookers, many people climbed on to the Google Street View car, which was equipped with (no doubt expensive) state-of-the-art 360-degree cameras to capture the surrounding scene. Basically, the revelers damaged the car’s mirrors, windscreen wipers, and, regrettably, the cameras, in their excited onslaught.
While Google is, reportedly, still investigating the incident, the spokesman did say they were relieved that no one was hurt. However, apparently it is unclear whether the images from the Google Street View cameras will be usable after the incident, due to the damage sustained by the cameras.
“La Tomatina” is probably something the search engine giant will avoid in the future. Maybe they’ll try the “Running of the Bulls” in Pamplona next year.
The video below contains images of the “La Tomatina” festival, but unfortunately didn’t get shots of the Google Street View car’s demise.
[Image: nedim chaabene / Flickr / CC BY 2.0]
