Technology is great when it works as intended, but not so much when it doesn’t.
IPhones are apparently calling 911 after detecting their owners being jostled around as if they were in a crash. However, those were no car accidents. Instead, the owners were zooming around on roller coasters, The Wall Street Journal reported.
Sara White was riding Mystic Timbers at Kings Island near Cincinnati when, after the ride was done, she noticed several missed calls and voicemails from an emergency dispatcher asking if she was OK.
White’s phone had car-crash detection that triggered and called 911 in Warren County. The call was recorded and said “The owner of this iPhone was in a severe car crash and is not responding to their phone,” repeating seven times.
White discovered the inadvertent call while she was in line for the bumper cars and returned the call to 911, telling them that she was OK, The Wall Street Journal reported.
Similar incidents have happened several times in Warren County, all happening since the iPhone 14 was released last month, the newspaper reported. Another incident occurred at Six Flags Great America near Chicago.
The phone has an axis gyroscope and a high G-force accelerometer to detect front, side, rear-end and rollover crashes, CNET reported. The owner of the phone has to dismiss the call within 20 seconds or the device automatically calls 911.
The phone also gives emergency responders the caller’s location, The Verge reported.
The technology is also available on the Apple Watch Series 8, CNET reported, but only if you have your iPhone with you or if the watch is connected to cell service or Wi-Fi, according to The Verge.
According to Apple, the crash detection feature is on by default for iPhone 14 models, but you can turn it off by going to “settings,” then “emergency SOS” and then selecting “turn off Call After Severe Crash.”
CNET reported that the feature can also be disabled temporarily by putting the iPhone into airplane mode.
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