Brit Donny Riding found himself in that very position some time ago. The taxi driver, who lives near Liverpool, was ordered by his doctor to stop the smokes and improve his diet or else face more health problems and hospital visits in the near future.
But poor ol’ Donny couldn’t, it seems, resist the occasional sneaky cigarette, even though he’d told wife Julie that he’d done the right thing and stubbed out his smoking habit.
So imagine, he’s outside his house one day enjoying a relaxing ciggie – Julie none the wiser – and then what rolls by but a Google Street View car. Donny probably thought nothing of it, perhaps he didn’t even see it through the smoke.
Recounting the story to the Liverpool Echo, Julie said, “He’d been told to give up smoking and to stop eating unhealthy foods after he had a heart attack. I cleaned his car out for him and I found loads of….biscuits in there. I confronted him and he denied it and he wouldn’t admit to it.”
It was then she had the idea to check Street View. To her surprise, though possibly to Donny’s even greater surprise, there was a picture, blurred face an’ all, of her husband looking very much like he was doing exactly what he shouldn’t have been doing.
“When I checked it online I couldn’t believe it – there was no denying it now we’d seen it, ” Julie told the Echo, adding, “He did sleep on the couch that night but he took it all in good spirits.”
With Google’s Street View cars having covered millions of miles around the world since the service launched back in 2007, it’s little surprise their on-board cameras catch people out from time to time, or record bizarre happenings on their travels.
For Donny, perhaps Street View saved his life, though the stress of being found out may well have left him reaching once again for his secret stash of cigarettes.
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