Forget lightning what are the odds of being snapped by the Google Car
cly
Posts: 1,393 Forum Member
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Just wondering what are the odds of being captured by the Google car when it's doing it's mapping and how they compare to such things as being struck by lightning or any of many long-odds events?
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I’ve never actually seen a Google cam-car myself but my ‘bessie mate can be clearly seen getting out of his car and walking into his house on ‘streetview’.
My wife’s dad is also clearly visible; he’s stood in his front window, drinking a cup of tea;....however, that’s not so much of a surprise as he spends most of his time doing that!:)
I guess the chance of being ‘caught on Google-camera’ is quite high.
There are about a quarter of a million miles of road in the UK. Assuming the Google car attempts to map every last inch it is probably travelling a bit more than that as it will almost certainly have to go over some roads several times to cover everything.
So lets say it does 300,000 miles and averages 40mph doing so. That means it comes past wherever you are about once every ten months if we assume that when it gets to the end it goes back to the beginning and starts all over again.
Of course all that falls apart if there is more than one car (which is very likely)
You can look at older pictures on Streetview you know- click on the clock icon next to where it tells you when the photo was taken.
Perhaps the car would be more than likely travelling at 30 mph or less when filming streets in towns and cities. I would hope so, anyway!
Working out the ‘odds’ of being caught on Google-cam is a very simple mathematical equation.
300,00 mile at 40mph is indeed 10 months approx.
But that assumes continuously driving 24hrs a day for almost a year, and I don’t think even the most dedicated Google-cam driver would be willing, or able, to do that.
In addition all the Google-cam pictures are taken in daylight hours; that needs to be factored-in.... as does the ‘time’ of year.
......more daylight in summer than winter, and more daylight in summer the further North you travel, ...but less in Winter compared to more southern parts of the UK.
The further north you live the more inclement the weather. You are less likely to capture people on Google-cam in the North than the South; northerners very rarely venture outdoors.
Conversely, southerners spend their entire lives sun-bathing in the front garden.....even in winter.
So, using a simple mathematical calculation and factoring-in the above, the ‘average UK’ odds of being caught on Google-cam is 12,387-1
IIRC, though, the images must've been updated because she's not there any more.
*EDIT*
Yep. Just checked. THIS is the image of the same place now.
I've often noticed that when one is going down a road on Street View and the weather is making the images darker all of a sudden you'll be transported into bright sunshine. At the same time you'll see vehicles and people miraculously appear or disappear. So they clearly do re-runs or alternatively keep the previous versions images if lighting conditions are poor under the new tour.
I was going to point out as well about the fact that those who are bemoaning their loss of 15 minutes of fame can simply click and select from relatively fairly far back in time.
Gee in view of the number of people who have mentioned their appearances on Street View and this being a single fast moving forum and only a tiny, tiny percentage of the population would ever have got to see the thread i'm upset that i seem to be one of the few in the UK not to have appeared on Street View lol.
EDIT: Just checked, I'm not in either location any more
Do car thieve really trawl Google Maps saying: "Nah, numberplate on that one is all blurry - aha, I can read the number, I'm 'aving that one!"