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The sudden twists and turns of roller coasters are tripping up emergency responders, thanks to the iPhone 14’s feature that will contact authorities when it senses the phone’s owner has been in a car crash.
Apple installed gyroscopic sensors and high-g accelerometers in their latest versions of the Apple Watch Series 8 and Apple Watch Ultra, as well as the latest iPhone, that were trained on simulated car crashes, according to tech news site The Verge.
Those simulations appear to share a lot with the jerky movements and turbulence found on roller coaster rides, including in Kings Island amusement park in Cincinnati.
Authorities have been dispatched to Kings Island six times over false crash detection calls since the phones first went on sale on Sept. 16, according to a report from The Wall Street Journal.
The phone (or watch) will send an automated message to the nearest police station saying, “The owner of this iPhone was in a severe crash and is not responding to their phone” before sending the location along.
Users do have a chance to prevent the call from happening by touching the screen during a 20-second window after the “crash” is detected, but typically the commotion of the roller coaster makes it hard to notice.
Crash detection can also be turned off by going to the Emergency SOS menu on the phone’s Settings app.
A spokesman for Apple told the Daily Mail that while the feature is “extremely accurate” at detecting crashes, they acknowledged there is room for improvement with the technology.
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