While capturing Street View images in Cleveland, Ohio, the Google team drove past a car in flames.

The incident that caused the car to burst into flames took place before the Google car arrived on scene, as the smoke from the fire is visible all the way up the street. It’s worth pointing out though that the frame that should have shown the wreck in most detail has been replaced with a shot taken on a different occasion.

What might have happened here?

Via Virtual Globetrotting.

See our previous posts Expensive Car Crash and Multi-Vehicle Car Accident Captured on Google Street View.

It’s been just over a month since Google added 12 new US cities to Street View, and yesterday we got new imagery in another 13 cities, and interestingly, a US national park! Here’s some of the highlights, including links straight there:

• Albuquerque, New Mexico
• Anchorage, Alaska
• Austin, Texas
• Cleveland, Ohio
• Fairbanks, Alaska
• Little Rock, Arkansas
• Madison, Wisconsin
• Nashville, Tennessee
• Rockford, Illinois
• Richmond, Virginia
• Spokane, Washington
• St. Petersburg, Florida
• Tampa, Florida

Finally, Google have also added imagery for the few roads that run through Yosemite National Park, California, which enables us to see some pretty stunning scenery.

Here’s El Capitan, a 910 metre vertical rock formation that’s a popular challenge for rock climbers, and some spectacular Giant Redwoods living up to their name!

Read the full story at the Google Lat Long Blog, read more about El Capitan and Giant Redwoods at Wikipedia.

Whatever is happening on the side of the street here in Chicago, a large amount of money is definitely changing hands between this man and the driver of the car.

Submitter Sean suggested that there may be some sinister activity going on here, and his statement isn’t without basis, as this rather nifty site shows all the crime data for the area, and there do appear to be a lot of drugs offences.

Perhaps you can suggest a more legitimate explanation?

Thanks to Sean.

Update: Google has since removed this image from their database.

The Google Lat Long blog has announced that Google has just added 12 more US cities to their street view coverage, bringing their total coverage to, um.. lots. The new cities added are as follows:

• Albany and Schenectady, NY
• Boise, ID
• Juneau, AK
• Kansas City, MO
• Manchester, NH
• Milwaukee, WI
• Research Triangle Park (Raleigh, Durham, Chapel Hill), NC
• San Antonio, TX
• Salt Lake City, UT

And presumably just for today (because today is Valentine’s Day in case you’d forgotten), it seems the little Street View guy is standing on a little love heart.

Aww, puke.

It seems the Street View camera car has a habit of coming across expensive car accidents, and today we see that a white Mercedes E-Class has, rather inexplicably, managed to drive into a tree on a quiet, straight road in Minneapolis.

Judging by the bumper damage, I’m reckoning it wasn’t just a handbrake left off or a mistake whilst parking. Thankfully, the driver appears to be unhurt, and looks like she is being assisted by a friendly neighbour!

Thanks: Jalopnik.com