Google Street View Car Hits Woodbridge

This is one car you'll be seeing a lot of.

The Google Street View car is making the rounds of Woodbridge, and they'll be taking pictures in the township for the next four months.

The car - an outfitted Subaru Impreza - is unmistakeable. It's painted into a virtual Google masterpiece, and on top is a mounted four-way camera system, topped with a huge red ball. 

On Wednesday, Patrick, the driver (who hails from Brooklyn), was making the near the . He's officially only allowed to say that he's "collecting data" for Google, but the job is an interesting one.

"I get stopped all the time for pictures," Patrick said. Cops, shoppers, school kids - everyone wants a picture of themselves with the Google Street View car.

Every day Patrick said he drives from Brooklyn to Woodbridge to take pictures - these snaps are meant to update the current Google maps program, which started in 2007 with street views of five cities and expanded to include the entire US, Europe, most of Australia, and parts of South America.

He's been driving around Woodbridge for about two weeks. Patrick said he finds it interesting, although the township isn't that easy to take pictures of. 

"Woodbridge has a lot of dead ends," he said.

So how does one get a job driving the Google Street View car? "I got the job through an agency," Patrick said.

The car seems to bring a smile to everyone who sees it. One lady said she had bumped into it several times already, and every time, people were grinning at the car and wildly taking pictures of it.

Inside, the car has a flat screen computer monitor and some big hard drives. Patrick wouldn't say, but it seems he drives and keeps an eye on what the cameras on top are recording as he wends his way through Woodbridge.

"It's a fun job," Patrick said, adding he meets a lot of people in his travels. 

Some folks, though, may think Google Street Views are an invasion of their privacy. Google, in their street view section, says that they will blur people, license plates of cars, the cars themselves, and even homes for those who are uncomfortable with having their property pictured on the Internet.

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