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iPhone 14's Car Crash Detection Still Triggering False 911 Calls, Forcing Dispatchers to Reallocate Resources Away From Real Emergencies

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Despite optimizations made in an iOS 16 update in November, the iPhone 14's Car Crash Detection feature continues to accidentally call 911 when a user may be on a rollercoaster, skiing, or doing other physical activities the device misunderstands as a car crash.

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The iPhone 14's Car Crash Detection feature uses an array of sensors on the device to call emergency services if it thinks a user has been involved in a car crash. Since the feature launched with the new iPhones and Apple Watch models in September, 911 and emergency dispatchers across the United States have noted an influx of calls from iPhone 14 devices that accidentally triggered Car Crash Detection, even though no car crash has occurred.

Amid reports of false calls, Apple released iOS 16.1.2 in November, which it said made "Crash Detection optimizations," without specifying what the changes were any further. Despite the update's optimizations, the issue continues to be a problem faced by law enforcement. As reported this week by local news outlet The Colorado Sun, 911 dispatch centers in counties across the state have been witnessing an increase in 911 calls from skiers after their iPhone 14 and newer Apple Watch models misinterpreted ski falls as car crashes.
Last weekend the dispatchers at the Summit County 911 Center fielded 71 automated crash notifications from skiers' iPhones and Apple watches at the county's four ski areas. None of them involved an emergency.

Dispatch operators in Grand, Eagle, Pitkin, Routt and Summit counties — home to 12 very busy ski hills — are fielding record numbers of the automated calls from skiers' Apple phones and watches, tying up emergency response resources. When a 911 call comes in, each call is handled in the order it arrives, so an automated call from a skier's phone could delay response to a 911 caller with a real emergency.
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911 dispatchers are not trained to ignore a call, meaning even accidental calls caused by the iPhone 14's feature have to be dealt with and resources allocated towards, said Trina Dummer, the interim director of the 911 center in Summit County. "These calls involve a tremendous amount of resources, from dispatchers to deputies to ski patrollers. And I don't think we've ever had an actual emergency event," Dummer continued.

The accidental calls are putting a strain on emergency centers which have to reallocate resources away from genuine emergencies, especially since 911 calls are taken in order and after each other. "We are absolutely diverting essential resources away from people who need it toward a feature on a phone," Dummer noted. In Pitkin County, the 911 center is receiving up to 20 of these accidental calls caused by the iPhone 14's Car Crash Detection feature a day, according to the county's director.
The Pitkin County 911 Center gets about 15 to 20 of these automated calls a day from the county's four ski areas. Dispatchers try to return every call, but oftentimes a call to a skier with their phone deep in their pockets goes unanswered, said Brett Loeb, the director of the Pitkin County 911 Center.

Loeb usually has one or two operators taking 911 calls and existing emergency calls can be put on hold to field incoming calls from iPhones. While his team has helped fallen hikers and residents whose watches have notified emergency services when they have fallen and need help, so far there have not been any real emergencies from the automated calls coming from the ski slopes.
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In one instance at the Vail Police Department in Vail, Colorado, the iPhone 14's Car Crash Detection successfully called 911 for a real car crash, noted Marc Wentworth, the director of the Vail Public Safety Communications Center, highlighting the feature does have potential to save lives.

In Summit County, the iOS 16.1.2 update did little, if nothing, to address the issue, according to the county's director. "But we have not seen our numbers change. We are seeing as many as 20 a day, and it's a tremendous drain on our resources," said County Sheriff Jaime FitzSimons.

FitzSimons notes he has shared his concerns with Apple with reported responses that the company is aware of the issue, still though, FitzSimons says more is needed. We are communicating with Apple to get them to pay more attention to this, but it feels like we are trying to turn a battleship in a bathtub."

Car Crash Detection is available on all iPhone 14 models and the Apple Watch Series 8, Apple Watch Ultra, and second-generation Apple Watch SE.

Article Link: iPhone 14's Car Crash Detection Still Triggering False 911 Calls, Forcing Dispatchers to Reallocate Resources Away From Real Emergencies
 
Article Link
https://www.macrumors.com/2022/12/26/iphone-14-car-crash-detection/
Apple’s obsession with secrecy has led them to eliminate all support beyond “erase and reinstall,” and if that doesn’t work, “RTA to engineering so engineering can tell you to keep your devices up to date.” Unfortunately, this has some serious consequences when the bug is a safety issue.
 
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julesme said:
This should be easy fix: Integrate with Apple Maps and disable crash detection when GPS shows that you’re on a ski slope or at an amusement park.
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But what happens if there is an actual crash during a ski slope or if you get flipped upside down from a roller coaster 😮
 
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Really sad that this would’ve resulted in a major scandal a couple of years ago and now it’s just another of Apple’s seemingly never-ending **** ups. How you don’t think to test with such activities before launching such a feature with millions of people throughout the world is something that only the Apple of today can do despite charging more and more ✌️

Scipster said:
I thought you could get fined for placing false 911 calls?
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You could. But I think this doesn’t apply when the device itself is responsible because this is totally a **** up by Apple, not the customer.
 
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much like with cars in general, I’m really not a fan of “here let’s do this automatically without your consent or control”

I turned this feature off on my new iPhone.

I’ll give you a more mundane less urgent example that is still irritating.

Auto rain sensing wipers.


Sounds like a great idea. Problem is, wiper blades/inserts never last as long as they’re supposed to — even “OEM” blades are stuttering maddeningly in 3 months.

So winter rolls around and you’re trying to clear off dust/grime etc from the glass — and the auto wipers won’t notice that. Or it’s been raining lately but you can’t rely on the auto wipers because the stuttering will drive you nuts. So you have to turn auto mode off and manually just do one, heavily lubricated swipe and turn it off, and manually do another swipe when you need it.

Having auto features is convenient, but I think the gradual shift away from any controls is a miss.
 
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Yikes! I myself feel guilty of this as rushing to work early in the morning I placed my phone on top pf my car as I was getting in and as I was driving I realized I did not have my phone on me. Drove back home, not finding it I used Find My and was able to locate it a few streets down. It had fallen off the roof of my car and triggered the emergency thing and that it had called a random number on my contacts at 4 am because I had to set it up. I felt terrible besides being late for work looking for my phone.
Amazing feature, just needs some tweaking.
 
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MacRumors said:
Despite optimizations made in an iOS 16 update in November, the iPhone 14's Car Crash Detection feature continues to accidentally call 911 when a user may be on a rollercoaster, skiing, or doing other physical activities the device misunderstands as a car crash.
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Surprised this doesn't result in a fine with false 911 calls. At least you can disable it when you do some activities.
 
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zorinlynx said:
This is going to result in regulation, I'm willing to bet big money on that.

Apple better get this **** under control. A good start would be to only do the 911 calling if the phone is paired to a car's bluetooth.
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Actually that not a bad thing. Regulating any functionality that calls 911. That ought to be a real innovation enabler. /s
 
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doboy said:
Half baked like all recent Apple software
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I remember when all new Apple software releases used to be rock stable and had all new advertised features at WWDC that year, back in the iOS 4-6 days.

Teams at Apple have so much software to worry about now, Apple has been diversifying their software projects. It used to be just iOS and macOS, now it includes a ton of iOS derivatives as well - I wouldn't be surprised if they just can't keep up with maintenance. They need to hire more software engineers.
 
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vertsix said:
I remember when all new Apple software releases used to be rock stable and had all new advertised features at WWDC that year, back in the iOS 4-6 days.

Teams at Apple have so much software to worry about now, Apple has been diversifying their software projects. It used to be just iOS and macOS, now it includes a ton of iOS derivatives as well - I wouldn't be surprised if they just can't keep up with maintenance. They need to hire more software engineers.
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They also need to spin out some of the devisions at Apple. As you say the range of software and devices they have to maintain now compared to the early iOS days is monumental yet the company seemingly still operates in the same, very centralised way.
 
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the truth is that smartphones have peaked and they're running out of reasons to sell you a new one every year, so they get the marketing dept. to half bake some gimmicky feature that likely isnt worth the administrative overhead for local governments

on top of that, working from home and the dedication to the stock price/shareholders has caused the software quality to be rushed and focused on adding gimmicky features above all else. bug fixes and performance improvements dont fill up headlines or impress investors
 
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Surely a sensible arrangement could be reached where Apple pay a large fine for each false call and it actually results in a net benefit for everyone, encouraging Apple to refine the technology further whilst covering the costs of false calls (and then some) in the meantime?

Edit: if not, why not @egodspeed , @TechNutt ?
 
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