Apple’s Crash Detection is responsible for a 5 times increase in the number of false 911 calls at a music festival
Now we switch to the iOS side where the feature found on the iPhone 14 series and the Apple Watch known as Crash Detection caused a ruckus last week at the Bonnaroo music festival in Tennessee. When Crash Detection detects that a crash has occurred, the phone and watch will sound an alarm and the screen will display an alert. The phone will read the alert and if you have just the iPhone, there will be a slider to swipe in order for an emergency call to be made.
Crash Detection is available on all four iPhone 14 series models, Apple Watch SE (second generation), Apple Watch Series 8, and Apple Watch Ultra. And the feature is being blamed for a 5x increase in the number of false 911 calls reported at the Bonnaroo music festival held last weekend in Manchester, Tennessee. The event drew more than 80,000 attendees and the size of the crowd alone could have made it a challenge for emergency services to respond to each call promptly.
Dancing might have set off the false alarms
So what set off the Crash Detection feature on the iPhone and Apple Watch? It’s believed that the false alarms were triggered when attendees were dancing to the live performances during the festival. LeDuc tried to reduce the number of false alarms by sending out alerts to iPhone and Apple Watch users in the area asking them to disable the Crash Detection feature. He said that the alerts were successful and reduced the number of accidental 911 calls by 40% to 60%.
Coffee County was able to track down the person behind each accidental 911 call to verify that they were false alarms. The county has been working with Wilson County which is hosting Sunday’s Ally 400 NASCAR race in Lebanon, Tennessee to make sure that the issue doesn’t repeat itself during the sporting event.
