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

[quarkysg]

False positive waste more than a phone line. If nobody responds, emergency services attend the location. It doesn’t matter when those 100 false positive occur. Every one carries a risk of killing multiple people through misdirected resources.

Sure, but your argument seems too extreme. I would think the positives outweigh the negatives.

As it is, I'm sure the emergency call centers are getting prank calls now and also gets calls for minor incidents.

Not sure if you're looking for perfection tho., coz it'll be quite impossible to achieve.

 

[Seanm87]

If this happened in the uk you’d still be waiting an hour and a half for an ambulance.

 

[NightFox]

One life saved is worth the 100 false positives.

I agree in principle with what you're saying that one life saved is worth x false positives, but there's still got to be a limit of what x is. Unfortunately the oft-used 'if it saves just one life it'll be worth it' is a massive over-simplification - in reality there's always got to be a balance. Unfortunate, but a practical reality.

 

[daabido]

This feature would be ringing its tits off every night in Alice Springs.

 

[W2u7Yw4HaD]

No word yet is this feature works with motorcycle accidents?

 

[edfoo]

One life saved is worth the 100 false positives.

Why don't you try working as an emergency responder to these call outs and come back to comment again?

 

[NightFox]

"Japanese firefighters do not recommend turning off Crash Detection, despite the inconvenience. "It's an effective function in the event of a really serious accident, so we can't ask users to turn it off," they said."

Apparently Japanese firefighters do not agree with your view.

Yes but people were responding to your post that said 1:100 was OK, maybe if Japanese emergency services were dealing with that ratio of false positives then their response might be different. Plus, there's liability involved in any such statement - no emergency service is going to come out and say turn off a system that could save someone's life - "we can't ask users to turn it off". That doesn't necessarily mean that they're actively promoting it.

 

[MrCrowbar]

Would be nice if CarPlay would interface with the car in a way that in a bigger crash, it immediately notified Apple Maps ("watch out, accident ahead") to avoid pile-ups and also tell emergency services the crash details like impact speed, directions, number and weight of passengers based on belt buckles and weight on the seat.

Unfortunately car systems are not really talking to each other, usually the best you get is the audio amplifier roughly knowing your speed so it can turn up the volume automatically.

 

[NightFox]

Would be nice if CarPlay would interface with the car in a way that in a bigger crash, it immediately notified Apple Maps ("watch out, accident ahead") to avoid pile-ups and also tell emergency services the crash details like impact speed, directions, number and weight of passengers based on belt buckles and weight on the seat.

Unfortunately car systems are not really talking to each other, usually the best you get is the audio amplifier roughly knowing your speed so it can turn up the volume automatically.

I agree, on paper it's a great tech opportunity, but you'll always get a privacy backlash to any proposals like that - many people aren't happy with any anonymised data being shared, such as that currently used to detect traffic congestion. Then there'll also be people concerned that data like that could be used against them, e.g. they have a light bump, iPhone sends useful info to emergency services that reveals they were speeding or not wearing their seatbelt, they get prosecuted and insurance company refuses to pay out.

 

[SmugMaverick]

Amazing that this story and others always pop up in the news after some major f**k ups like the Japan story.

You'd think Apple have a very strong hold over the tech media......wouldn't you.

 

[DFZD]

I'm shocked that a phone company has to invent this.. this should have been an essential feature in all European cars at least.

 

[startergo]

Is it? I think there’s a lot of emergency dispatchers/first responders who would disagree.

So you say one life worth saving is not enough for 100 false positives? How many are then?

 

[JackRabbitJobs]

I'm shocked that a phone company has to invent this.. this should have been an essential feature in all European cars at least.

The system is called eCall and is mandatory in all new cars sold in the EU since 2018. No satellite connectivity 'tho.

 

[DFZD]

The system is called eCall and is mandatory in all new cars sold in the EU since 2018. No satellite connectivity 'tho.

So Americans late to the party as always? Anyway doesn't Tesla have this? Or does it require district administration to be in the loop to work?

 

[Kar98]

I don't know why MR publishers every story about crash detection. This isn't special to iPhones. Haven't the Pixel phones had crash detection since 2019?

You might have to check PixelRumors.com for that one.

 

[unregbaron]

One life saved is worth the 100 false positives.

Maybe but false positives potentially stop resources helping genuine emergencies. There are only so many crews available to attend.

 

[unregbaron]

So you say one life worth saving is not enough for 100 false positives? How many are then?

If 100 false positives mean 2 lives are lost then it isn’t worth saving 1 with this feature.

 

[darngooddesign]

Is it? I think there’s a lot of emergency dispatchers/first responders who would disagree.

That depends on whether the false positives resulted in just calls or actual dispatches of emergency services.

 

[StuBeck]

I'm shocked that a phone company has to invent this.. this should have been an essential feature in all European cars at least.

Its been a feature in many cars for years already.

 

[jarman92]

That depends on whether the false positives resulted in just calls or actual dispatches of emergency services.

From the stories I’ve read, they respond unless they can definitively determine that it’s a false alarm. The dispatchers in CO said they were getting 10-20 iPhone/Watch calls per day and responding to most.

 

[jarman92]

So you say one life worth saving is not enough for 100 false positives? How many are then?

It’s not that simple. If it were 1 life vs 100 calls, that’s obviously a worthwhile tradeoff. But if it’s 1 life vs 100 responses, that’s an enormous expense that will inevitably lead to missing or delayed responses to actual emergencies.

 

[slyronit]

“Minutes after” or “immediately”? Make up your mind.

 

[I7guy]

You are assuming that someone lived specifically due to Apple's crash detection who otherwise would have died. The burden of proof in that regard is on you.

That’s a distraction, the real question is how long would the victim have not been found.

 

[mutru]

One life saved is worth the 100 false positives.

What if a false report delays emergency responders handling an legit call for help?

 

[VulchR]

If this happened in the uk you’d still be waiting an hour and a half for an ambulance.

Hours in many places. Still, I managed to get in and out of an A&E in an hour the other day.

In any case, those in this thread droning on about false positives need to consider the possibility that an accelerometer might not be able to detect the difference between the G's pulled during an accident where the iPhone is in a pocket on a person strapped down by seat belt and decelerated by an air bag versus a person on a sky slope who just stuck a hard landing after a jump.

Anyway, as noted above, you'd think cars would have this built in and possibly have some sort of very short range radio beacon that tells mobile devices that the person is in a moving car.