It only took emergency services eight minutes to respond to a car crash early on Monday morning in Tasmania's north, after one of the passengers' phonesdetected the incident and made the call.
Police were automatically notified after the four-wheel drivecrashed into a tree stump at 1:45am, and five people were taken to hospital.
It is not the first time the feature has led to the rescue of drivers caught in accidents — earlier this year, the feature alerted authorities to a crash in remote southern Tasmania when an 18-year-old was trapped, and in Adelaide after a man's car was hit by loose truck tyres.
So how does it work?
As you could guess, crash detection technology is designed to detect severe car crashes and alert emergency services.
It is made possible thanks to an array of sensors that can detect a car's motion, speed and other factors likepressure change and sound level to determine if a serious crash has occurred.
It's a feature that's available on the latest Apple iPhones and watches as well as Google's Pixel line of phones.
Once a crash has been detected, the phone or watch will sound an alarm and display an alert.
If a person is able to, they can choose to continue the call to emergency services or disable it,but if they are unable to, the device automatically makes the callafter a short delay.
The technology also automatically shares your estimated latitude and longitude coordinates with a search radius with authorities.
While not available in Australia yet, Apple has an extra safety feature that takes into account serious accidents that occur in remote areas.
In the US, UK and a few European countries, if someone involved in a crash has no reception, an iPhone 14 will make an emergency SOS call via satellite connectivity.
There is no word on when satellite SOS will reach Australia but the feature was able to help ina case in California last year, where two people were injured after their car veered off theside of a mountain andfellnearly 100 metresinto a remote canyon.
It's automatic for iPhones but Pixel users need to enable it
Although Apple made crash detection popular, it is not the only brand with life-saving technology.
For many Google Pixel users, the feature may already be installed in their phone and ready to use, even on older models.
Similar to the iPhone, the Pixel uses the phone's location, motion and audio sensors to detect if there has been a crash.
However, unlike the iPhone, the car crash detection feature must be manually switched on and permission to access location services is required.
What about detecting false positives?
As with most technology,itisnot perfect and there have been instances of false activations.
A report by the Wall Street Journal found Crash Detection was often triggered in amusem*nt parks across the United States.
This may be due to the design of rollercoasters with tight turns and steep slopes.
There have also been reports of a surge in emergency calls from skiers in the US after their iPhones and Apple watches misinterpreted ski falls for car crashes.
However, the latest iOS update is said to address and fix these issues.
While crash detection is available at no extra cost, Apple's satellite SOS feature — which is not yet in Australia —is free for two years and then will incur an extra cost.
Australia slow to catch on
There are also examples of emergency callsystems that are built into new vehicles on the Australian market.
Since 2020, select Toyota and Lexus models have been fitted with the software which are designed to generate an SOS emergency call, deploy airbags and send location coordinates.
One study, backed by the Royal Automobile Club of Victoria (RACV),has estimated fitting emergency call systems inall Australian vehicles could save around 200 lives each year and prevent 2,500 injuries each year.
While emergency call systems have been mandated across Europe for all new commercial vehicles since 2018, vehicle safety and security tech expert, Katherine Anderson, saidAustralia wasbehind the curve.
"There is little known about [emergency call], let alone the benefit at a consumer level and industry level. That is something we're coming up against here in Australia," she said.
But with technology advancing every day and more manufacturers working on connective vehicle programs, MsAnderson saidthat may be changing.
"We're probably a few years away from it being mandated and regulated here in Australia."
