I was reading that the latest version of Android includes a car crash detection feature that can automatically notify 911 if it detects a car accident. Pretty cool. How do I enable this on my Android phone?
You’re correct that Android 12 does now have Car Crash Detection, but let’s step slowly here. First off, it’s a feature that was first introduced in Android 11 and has been redesigned for Android 12. This means if you’re on Android 8, Android 10, or similar, well, you’re outta luck. Well, unless you have a Google Pixel, in which case this feature showed up in an earlier form a bit earlier. But if you have a Google Pixel, then just update to the latest Android!
Car Crash Detection also requires a lot of permissions. In fact, 90% of setting it up is allowing permissions and then tweaking them so that the utility can run in the background with precision and accuracy. It’s a really interesting idea, however, and is probably a harbinger of things to come with devices helping us in critical situations without us having to manually trigger or enable them. Oh, and it’s not an app, per se, just a feature in Android 11/12 that you need to enable.
I’ve got a Pixel 6 Pro running the very latest version of Android 12, so let’s see how to get it all set up…
HOW TO ENABLE CAR CRASH DETECTION IN ANDROID
First step is to go into Settings, then swipe down a bit to find “Safety & Emergency”. Tap on it.
You can go through Medical Information and Emergency Contacts to set things up as desired, but even if you don’t do any of that, you can jump straight to “Car crash detection” and enable it.
Tap on “Car crash detection”.
This not only has a fortunately benign illustration (I imagine that a car flying off into a ravine might be a bit more upsetting for people!) but explains how the feature works and offers a demo option. Tap on “Try a demo” (in a place where it’s okay if your phone makes noise) and you can get a sense of what’ll happen.
Still want to enable it? Cool. Tap on the slider switch to turn the feature ON.
SETTING UP PERMISSIONS FOR CAR CRASH DETECTION
You now get to go through the conga line of permissions required for this feature to actually work. First up…
“Allow personal safety to access your physical activity?”. Yes? Tap on “Allow”.
Note: At any point along the way if you decide not to allow access, you’ll disable car crash detection, no harm done.
Next up, a warning about the vagueries of sensors and the fact that this feature could ostensibly not trigger in an accident or inadvertently trigger when you aren’t in an accident. Here’s how Google words it:
Are you good with that? I thought you might be. I mean, hey, it’s a phone and it’s trying to track being on your person during a vehicular accident. Not so easy to detect even with an array of sophisticated sensors.
Tap on “OK” to proceed.
FINE TUNING DEVICE LOCATION ACCESS
Next up is a bit of a clumsy sequence. First, allow “While using the app” access to the device’s location:
Great. Oh, but no. In fact, you need to grant an unusual permission to this utility: Always allow access, regardless of whether the app is in use or not:
I’m not sure I have any other Android apps with “Allow all of the time” location access, but sure enough, tap on “Settings” and it’ll jump you right to the correct spot:
You want the top option – “Allow all the time” – though with 99% of apps, you do not want to grant this permission as it allows you to be tracked [read: stalked] whether or not you even have the app running. Generally not good. While you’re on this screen, ensure that you also have “Use precise location” selected. If the phone’s going to summon 911 help for you, don’t you want them to receive an accurate location?
Done? Tap on the arrow on the top left of the Location permission screen and you’ll move to yet the next step in the process. Yes, another permission request:
Tap on “While using the app” and, hurrah! You’re done.
Enabled. Now don’t go getting into an accident just to test it, okay?
Actually, while you’re in the Safety & Emergency area, tap on the last of the options on that screen too: “Crisis Alerts”. It’s another feature that’s super helpful and everyone should enable, particularly those of you that no longer have a landline phone:
That’s it. Now you be safe out there with your Android phone, okay?
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Same. Have Galaxy Fold 2. No crash detection.
Same here. Plain Galaxy S22 (not + or Ultra) running Android 13. Also have Galaxy Watch 4 connected by Bluetooth. But no crash detection (or crisis alerts, either)!
I have a Samsung Galaxy S-22+ running Android 12 and under “Safety & Emergency I do not have a Crash Detect option.