The 5 Weirdest Things I Saw Driving For Google Street View

Try "Schmoogle driver" instead -- it's all rather hush hush.

Take Wheeling, West Virginia. It's one of the largest cities in West Virginia, is a county seat, is home to the HQs of many businesses, and is an all-around regional hub. And yet almost none of it is covered:

Just across the Ohio River is St. Clairsville, Ohio. Besides a small mall, there isn't much to the city, and yet someone must have been short on data that day since almost the entire town, including parking lots, is Street Viewed.

What gets mapped isn't up to Google -- it's up to the Adams of the world: "I was born in this small town in Ohio, and before I got the job, there was just a Street View on the highway that ran through it. When I was assigned a point that would take me through my old hometown, I felt nostalgic and covered every corner of it. On the other side of the coin, a few days later I was to end on the city where an ex-girlfriend lived. It had been extensively covered several years earlier, but because of unpleasant memories there, I quickly went through, only taking a slight detour to cover a monument that was there. The rest I kept in the past."

So Wheeling just plain wasn't sexy enough to wind up on the internet, while St. Clairsville, that saucy little minx, got herself covered.

Because of the way Google driving works, flipping some driver the bird at the wrong point may actually keep huge chunks of your city tragically undocumented for months: "We always need a direct route from Point A to Point B, and we only get to decide everything else to cover once we get that. Stray ones are kept in or blurred out, but if we get a route that has middle finger after middle finger, especially near a landmark, we'll need to reshoot and may miss huge sections of places," he says.

Yes, your act of pre-teen edginess actually does have a tangible effect on the world. You matter, you little rebel, you!

For his own safety, and to avoid those inevitable long, raving lectures about Orwell and America and Reptites in the White House or whatever, Adam figured out a strategy: "Just smile and gun it as soon as the light turned green."

Of course, some weren't so easily dissuaded: "There was a rural area where I had to wait at a slow/stop sign construction project on a road. This guy at a house I was passing ran into his SUV, pulled out, and started to follow a few cars behind me. It was hard to forget since he had a huge 'Don't tread on me' flag sticker on his front bumper that peeked out every time he attempted to pass the car in front of him. This was for five miles until we hit a light. He pulled in the turn lane next to me and started yelling something. I knew I shouldn't get into an argument, but I lowered my window in case there was something wrong with my car. He started to yell at me about leaving his house alone because of privacy. I did my customary smile and nod and continued on. He followed me for another mile before giving up."

Adam's not being paranoid: Violence against Street View cars isn't unheard of -- from the English town that formed a mob to keep a Google car out to the cars being pelted with tomatoes to drivers getting attacked with pickaxes.

Even off the roads, Adam isn't safe. He stopped at a motel and was immediately approached by a shifty dude. "He said, 'You're the one driving this?' I said, 'Yeah, just driving,' waved, and started to shut the door, when he put his hand on it. My hand went right to my cellphone. 'Hey, was your camera taking pictures of my room last night?' I started to explain how it couldn't take photos when it was off and the rig was lowered, but he wasn't listening. 'I don't want pictures of me on the internet. None.' He gave this look that made me really uneasy. He started to say, 'Let me tell you something,' but he let go of the top of my door. 'I'm going to be late. I'm sorry,' I said as I shut it and pulled out as fast as I could."

Which is the correct response: As soon as they start raving about the Reptites, you're already screwed (the only way out is to Fire Whirl).