Bonnaroo Attendees Are Making Accidental 911 Calls With iPhone’s Crash Feature

Jason Merritt/Getty Images

Bonnaroo Attendees Are Making Accidental 911 Calls With iPhone’s Crash Feature

Jason Merritt/Getty Images

This year’s Bonnaroo festival kicked off last night, and apparently people were going off too hard to Zeds Dead or whatever. In previous years, this wouldn’t have been a problem. But Apple recently launched its crash detection feature in iPhones and Apple Watches. Last fall, Apple introduced the new feature, which is intended to alert authorities to car crashes automatically. The crash detection feature responds to extreme accelerations or decelerations, and it appears that extreme accelerations and decelerations happen often at Bonnaroo.

In recent months, Apple has been dealing with the issue that the crash detection feature may be too sensitive. In January, Macworld reported that 911 call centers have been overwhelmed by automated crash-detection calls, thanks to people falling down while skiing. Rollercoasters also sometimes trigger the feature. I don’t know what people are doing at Bonnaroo to make their phones automatically call 911, but they’re doing it, to the point where Bonnaroo itself has addressed it. After “multiple accidental 911 calls,” the festival is asking attendees to turn off their crash features.

Knocked Loose play Bonnaroo today. Those 911 operators are going to be busy.

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