Did Google run over a donkey?

Written by

Oh Google.



  • http://twitter.com/thomasalvarez Thomas Alvarez
  • Rafael Capanema
  • tylernol

    donkeygate?

  • http://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=564026879 Timothy Williamson

    You can clearly see the donkey standing up before and after the non-collision in either direction you run the camera. They clearly did not hit the donkey.

  • http://www.aichon.com/ Brad

    Yeah, looking at it myself and not even seeing Google’s additional images they released, it seemed apparent that the donkey was taking a dust bath or maybe fell over confused because of the OTHER car that passed it before the Street View vehicle was anywhere close.

    If you go to the left from the donkey, you’ll eventually see another vehicle in the direction of the donkey. Based on its dust trail and how it appears in the pictures, you can tell that the Street View car and the other vehicle are each in their respective left sides of the road and are traveling towards each other. The donkey is visibly standing, gets enshrouded by the dust cloud from the other vehicle, is on the ground, appears to kick its legs once (you can see them extended and can see dust coming from the donkey as it’s clearly moving), and then it’s back up and on the side of the road as the Street View car goes on.

    It’s only when you look at the events backwards and don’t go far enough to see that the donkey was standing up again at what you’d think was the end of the saga that you get the wrong impression about what happened. Backing up far enough and looking at the images in order, it’s pretty obvious the donkey was fine.

    • SV650

      I believe the car stopped, and waited until the donkey got up, and I believe a review of the link posted by Thomas Alvarez supports this as well. The disappearance of the dust cloud from behind the vehicle as it approaches the donkey & reappears some tens of photos later support the slowing & later acceleration of the vehicle.

      Donkey- gate indeed!

  • Steven Fisher

    I couldn’t quickly tell if it knocked it down or disturbed its nap and got it to stand up. I’m betting on the nap; it’d be easy to back the car up a bit and hit record again, showing only a mysterious dead donkey as the car drives by.

  • Tvaddic

    This linked to Fox News, so I’m going to give Google the benefit of the doubt.

    • JDSoCal

      Dur hur, another MSLSD viewer complaining abut biased news.

      • http://twitter.com/Moeskido Moeskido

        Because they’re all equally biased?

      • http://www.tumblr.com/blog/his-divine-shadow His Shadow

        Fox’s existence isn’t as perplexing as the people who defend Fox.

  • http://twitter.com/migko85 migko

    ok, you don’t like google… but srsly? fox news?

    • JDSoCal

      Oh, it was on Fox News, so it isn’t true? Dopey libtard. Go watch MSLSD.

      • http://twitter.com/migko85 migko

        In fact it isn’t true so… ;)

  • mvcmendes

    “Our Street View teams take the safety of people and donkeys very seriously”. If only they cared this much about people’s (and donkeys’) privacy…

  • http://www.johncblandii.com John C. Bland II

    Having hit wild game before…this definitely was not a live kill. The legs are too stiff to have just been hit and the car is too lined up with it. They would’ve swerved, had dust, etc behind them.

    All that to say…proven to be false anyway so no issue.

  • Player_16

    If Google DID hit it with their car, then they must be driving Hummers or Land Rovers. Donkeys are rather BIG.

  • Manuel

    Hi Jim, I really expect you to update this post. Anyone could have seen on Streetview that the Fox story was bogus. Believing in Fox news is naive and linking to them on this blog is irritating to say the least.

    • JDSoCal

      You mean like Fox News was “wrong” when they reported Jeep was sending jobs to China, and the entire mainstream media circled around Obama to protect him and deny it?

      You mean like when Fox News was the only organization covering the Benghazi scandal weeks before the election?

      • http://twitter.com/Moeskido Moeskido

        What scandal?

      • http://www.tumblr.com/blog/his-divine-shadow His Shadow

        You mean like how it tuned that Fox actually was bullshitting about the Jeep jobs to China histrionics?

        • JDSoCal
          • http://www.tumblr.com/blog/his-divine-shadow His Shadow

            The fact that Chrysler was going to build Jeeps in China was not the lie. The lie was that Jeep jobs in the US were being cut or eliminated to move production to China. The building of Jeeps in China to be sold in China to reduce taxes and tariffs is part of that thing called “capitalism” that gets so many conservatives panties in a wad.

            Five Star Shitbag Mitt Romney – “I saw a story today, that one of the great manufacturers in this state, Jeep, now owned by the Italians, is thinking of moving all production to China,” he said, to boos from the audience. He saw no such story. So you have to assume extremely poor reading comprehension, or lying. Since Romney and his campaign refused to correct the claim, we are left with lying.

            So no, Fox was and is wrong. And by extension, so are you.

    • http://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=564026879 Timothy Williamson

      Do you realize that nearly every other news source reported the same story?

  • http://twitter.com/Yogi Jonas

    A quick review of the google streetview reveals that the google car is clearly driving up to the donkey as it is doing its donkey business on the road, then passing it after it gets up from the road.

    Thanks, Jim, you really couldn’t have spent the 15 seconds yourself to figure out this story was donkeyshit?

  • itsgene

    One only needs one fact to debunk this story: in Botswana they drive on the left. So what the newspaper claims is the front view is really the back view. If you take that into account and follow the sequence it’s clear what happened: the donkey was walking alongside the oncoming car (which is what created the dust cloud – they must have been booking, cos the Google car creates no cloud). It fell down shortly before the Google car got to it. The Google car paused to wait for it to get on its feet (this explains why it has moved so far). Then as the Google car continues on its way, you can see the donkey wandering in the brush. Case closed.

  • http://www.kevwil.me/ Kevin Williams

    Oh Jim.