iPhone 14 Crash Detection Alerts Police Minutes After Early Morning Tasmania Accident

The Crash Detection function in the iPhone 14 was able to alert the police immediately after an early morning accident occurred in Tasmania and get help for victims within minutes.

According to Australia’s ABC News, a four-wheel-drive truck towing a raft of horses collided with a tree stump at 1:45 a.m. in Tasmania on Monday. Crash Detection alerted nearby police, who were able to arrive at the scene within eight minutes, even though the passengers were unconscious.

Five people aged between 14 and 20 were taken to hospital, and one person with serious injuries was airlifted to Melbourne. In accidents with life-threatening injuries, immediate help can make a big difference. “In a case where people have lost consciousness in an accident like this, it’s definitely something that alerts the police quickly,” Tasmania Police Inspector Ruth Orr said. Officers were also already in the area, which helped with the response time.

Apple’s ‌iPhone 14‌ models have only been out for four months, but the Crash Detection function has already helped several accident victims, as well as the Emergency SOS via satellite function that can contact the police in emergency situations where WiFi and cellular service are not available.

Unfortunately, Crash Detection can also cause false positives, which can be frustrating for emergency responders around theme parks and ski resorts. In November, Summit County dispatchers in Utah said they saw a large increase in accidental 911 calls, and just this week, a report from The Japan News said the Kita-Alps Nagano Fire Department had a total of 134 received fake calls which were mainly caused. by Crash Detection, with those calls occurring between December 16 and January 23.

Japanese firefighters do not recommend turning off crash detection, despite the inconvenience. “This is an effective feature in the event of a truly serious accident, so we cannot ask users to turn it off,” they said.

Apple has already tweaked Crash Detection and optimized it with the iOS 16.1.2 update to reduce false positives, but reports in December suggested that 911 dispatchers were still getting a number of accidental calls. Utah Summit County Sheriff Jamie FitzSimons said in December that Apple is aware of the problem, and that more refinement is needed. “We’re communicating with Apple to get them to pay more attention to this, but it feels like we’re trying to turn a battleship in a bathtub,” FitzSimons said.