The iPhone 14’s new crash detection feature is supposed to alert authorities when a crash is detected, but it has an unintended side effect: frantic calls to 911 on roller coasters. according to the Wall Street Journal, the feature has caused law enforcement to be sent to amusement parks multiple times because they mistook the wide turns, accelerations, and sharp brakes of thrill ride for real emergencies.
Apple last month introduced crash detection in its new iPhone 14, Watch Series 8, SE and Ultra, devices equipped with a gyroscopic sensor and high gravity accelerometer and trained to simulate the effects of a car crash. If the sensor detects an accident, the iPhone will display an alert and if it remembers that the alert has not been disarmed within 20 seconds, emergency services will be called.
When it calls law enforcement, it will play an audio message to alert authorities that a crash has occurred and provide them with your location. (Apple Watch with collision detection will only notify authorities if they are connected to a mobile network or Wi-Fi).
So it’s no surprise that a 911 call on a roller coaster is in the wrong place at the wrong time. Wall Street Journal reporter Joanna Stern shared an example on Twitter where one of the 911 calls was made while the owner of an iPhone 14 was strapped to a roller coaster at Cincinnati’s Kings Island amusement park. As the automated message played, a muffled scream could be heard in the background of the 911 call as the roller coaster was running.
Last month, Stern tested Apple’s collision detection feature in an experiment and found it to be not entirely reliable. While it did recently help detect and alert authorities to a fatal crash in Nebraska in which there were no survivors, the feature clearly has its flaws.
Stern said Warren County, where Kings Island is located, has received six emergency calls triggered by park rides since the iPhone 14 was released. She also noted that other users have experienced similar problems at amusement parks across the country. Bringing smartphones on rides is not a smart idea in the first place, but the risk posed by visitors on roller coasters, bumper cars and other rides collectively misdialing 911 could be even worse.
