"....
They will also be used to take shots from the insides of football stadiums, enabling fans to see where there seats are before they arrive, and travel along narrow lanes and paths from this summer.
  
In Rome, the trikes have already taken pictures of the Trevi fountain and other landmarks inaccessible to cars.
...."

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/scienceandtechnology/technology/google/5532738/Google-Street-View-takes-to-a-tricycle.html

http://www.nerve.com/CS/blogs/61fps/2009/01/facepalm.jpg

Also discussed here:
http://blogoscoped.com/archive/2009-05-18-n40.html

Looks exactly same as the one in Japan
http://asiajin.com/blog/2009/05/14/google-streetview-considers-local-charcteristics-and-deploys-new-measures/

Of course, they have been seen in the USA, in France, in Japan, in Italy, in UK and in Spain recently.

It is confirmed now that Telegraph and Times can report about these as news because they don't know the background...