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Comment by Peroni | Hacker News Reader

The Automatic Link includes a built-in accelerometer that can detect many types of crashes. Automatic uses your phone's data connection to immediately report the crash to 911 with your name, location, and vehicle description.

Now this fascinates me. I wonder what parameters are required to trigger the automatic emergency notification.

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That raised my eyebrows too. I can't help but see a lot of false positives from this, maybe even just from accidentally whacking the device.

The device is going to be looking for the "airbag deployment" code on the OBDII/CANBUS port, as well as accelerometer data.

Does the onboard computer report that the airbags have deployed?

Sudden deceleration + airbag deploy = 911?

Honestly, any airbag deploy should be a call to 911. I think it's how OnStar works.

Airbags are dangerous. Not as dangerous as not having one when you are in a car crash, so don't go taking yours out. I'm related to an engineer who worked on deployment, and the manufacturers worried a lot about only doing it in cases of true crashes. They aren't perfect but nothing is.

Does the onboard computer report that the airbags have deployed?

Yes the ECU has a state that detects airbag deployment but even the airbags can have a false deploy (see the most recent episode of Top Gear for a prime example).

And how is it reported to 911? Does Automatic have someone manually call it in? I didn't think 911 had an api that you could report stuff through.

Ford Sync and OnStar somehow already do this. I'm just guessing, but it probably just makes a phone call like "Air bags deployed at xxx lat yyy long location. This has been an automated call."

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