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This smart car seems to have tattled on its driver
The Switch
This smart car seems to have tattled on its driver
By Hayley Tsukayama December 7 at 6:41 PM
@htsuka
A Florida woman was reportedly arrested and placed into custody last week, after her car implicated her in at least one alleged hit-and-run incident. ... You read that right.
According to reports from Chicago's ABC7 and ABC25 in West Palm Beach, Fla., a car driven by 57-year-old Cathy Bernstein automatically called 911 to report a crash. The call was part of a safety feature designed to help first responders locate people who may have lost consciousness in crashes. That seems to have given dispatchers all the information they needed to pinpoint the location of the vehicle — and find the alleged hit-and-run driver — without ever having to talk to a person. In fact, talking to a person didn't help at all: in an audio clip of a 911 call obtained by the Florida station, Bernstein denied to a skeptical dispatcher that there even been any accident at all.
The report said the car that tattled on its owner was a Ford; Police in Port St. Lucie, Fla., did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
Alan Hall, a spokesman for Ford, said that the company hadn't heard of 911 Assist being used like this before. But, he said, from reports he'd heard about the Florida incident, it seems that the emergency call feature "worked exactly like it was supposed to." The vehicle was in a collision, and called 911 through the driver's phone, which was paired with the car. When the driver did not respond to the operator, the car appears to have taken over and provided the operator with the information needed to locate the vehicle. That could have been a life-saver if the driver was unresponsive after passing out behind the wheel.
This smart car seems to have tattled on its driver
By Hayley Tsukayama December 7 at 6:41 PM
@htsuka
A Florida woman was reportedly arrested and placed into custody last week, after her car implicated her in at least one alleged hit-and-run incident. ... You read that right.
According to reports from Chicago's ABC7 and ABC25 in West Palm Beach, Fla., a car driven by 57-year-old Cathy Bernstein automatically called 911 to report a crash. The call was part of a safety feature designed to help first responders locate people who may have lost consciousness in crashes. That seems to have given dispatchers all the information they needed to pinpoint the location of the vehicle — and find the alleged hit-and-run driver — without ever having to talk to a person. In fact, talking to a person didn't help at all: in an audio clip of a 911 call obtained by the Florida station, Bernstein denied to a skeptical dispatcher that there even been any accident at all.
The report said the car that tattled on its owner was a Ford; Police in Port St. Lucie, Fla., did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
Alan Hall, a spokesman for Ford, said that the company hadn't heard of 911 Assist being used like this before. But, he said, from reports he'd heard about the Florida incident, it seems that the emergency call feature "worked exactly like it was supposed to." The vehicle was in a collision, and called 911 through the driver's phone, which was paired with the car. When the driver did not respond to the operator, the car appears to have taken over and provided the operator with the information needed to locate the vehicle. That could have been a life-saver if the driver was unresponsive after passing out behind the wheel.