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#trending: Google Maps captures dramatic moment when its Street View car collides with motorcyclist in Senegal

Google Maps’ Street View never fails to be a treasure trove of weird, wild and sometimes shocking moments being captured on camera. This time, a Google Maps Street View car was captured being involved in a traffic accident. 

Google Maps' Street View showed a motorcyclist trying to do a U-turn before colliding with a Street View car in Senegal.

Google Maps' Street View showed a motorcyclist trying to do a U-turn before colliding with a Street View car in Senegal.

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  • A Google Maps’ Street View car photographed the dramatic moment it knocked down a motorcyclist in Senegal 
  • The images were later discovered by a Twitch streamer during a livestream in February 
  • Google Maps has since taken down the images on its Street View

SENEGAL — Google Maps’ Street View never fails to be a treasure trove of weird, wild and sometimes shocking moments being captured on camera.

This time, a Google Maps' Street View car — commonly used for collecting imagery for Google Maps — was caught being involved in a traffic accident. 

The Google contractor was caught on camera — by its own camera, no less — crashing into a motorcyclist on the roads of Senegal. 

On Google Maps’ Street View, the car can be seen approaching a motorcyclist seemingly trying a do a U-turn. In the next image as the user navigates forward, the motorcyclist was photographed mid-air after colliding with the vehicle. 

Subsequent images showed the motorcyclist lying by the roadside enveloped in a cloud of dust while the car drove away. The accident occurred in December 2021, The Canberra Times reported. 

The discovery, however, was made by Twitch streamer Pol Turrents on Feb 9, who stumbled across the images three hours into his livestream. 

“Excuse me for being funny, but I didn't run over anyone, right?”, the streamer said, pausing at the image of a man who had seemingly fallen in front of the car.

The next image showed a dramatic scene of the man and his helmet suspended mid-air, after being knocked down by the Google Maps car. 

“I can’t believe it,” the streamer gasped, cupping his hand over mouth in shock.

Images of the crash have since been removed from Google Maps’ Street View. Users on Reddit online forum recognised the images to be shot in Youpe Amadi, Senegal.

A scene-by-scene video of the accident was also posted on Reddit in February, receiving 11,000 upvotes.

One Reddit user asked: "How does this make it on Google? They’re not uploading in real time are they?”

Another theorised that the images uploaded earlier on Google Maps could be a mix-up: "I’d think he’d go back and drive past the area without the crash for there to be a clean version to upload? Or at least blurred this out, but maybe it just slipped through the cracks."

One Redditor wrote: “(Imagine) going up to your boss and saying, 'Hey, I just hit a guy so we should probably go back and retake pictures of this area'. (This) could result in a loss of job.

"My guess is the driver never reported this and there's no human actually looking at all of the pictures they take for Street View."

It is not known if the driver of the Google Street View car tended to the victim after the crash.

An eagle-eyed Redditor also spotted a goat on a motorcycle along the same road.

“If you go down the street, there’s a guy riding a motorcycle with a goat in his lap.”

A man on a motorcycle with his goat was spotted along the same road in Youpe Amadi, Senegal.

Previously, online users have spotted a man wearing a horse mask eating a banana in Canada and a child stuck in a bin in Switzerland on Google Maps’ Street View. 

In Singapore, Google Maps’ Street View became a time capsule of sorts for a man who revisited it whenever he missed his late grandmother to see an image of her running errands

@thegoogleearthguy Reply to @hebraketestedme i have so many questions on to how he got there. #fyp #thegoogleearthguy #viral #googleearth #trending ♬ yeeeee - cash moneyyyy

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