Google's Pixel car crash detection comes to the rescue by potentially saving a man's life

Chuck Walker, known on Reddit as u/postnospam, recently shared his experience with Google's car crash detection. While he was not involved in a car accident, the feature kicked into action following a collision on his property, of which he has no recollection. Nonetheless, the photos below, taken a day after the event, reveal how Mr Walker sustained severe injuries to his ribs and was knocked unconscious.

The impact triggered car crash detection on his Pixel 4 XL, which alerted emergency services when he did not respond after the accident. Subsequently, Walker stated that his injuries were not immediately life-threatening but that it would probably have taken hours for someone to find him at the remote crash site. Google has published an interactive tutorial on enabling car crash detection, which you can follow here.

Unfortunately, the feature is only available on the following Pixel smartphones:

• Pixel 3
• Pixel 3 XL
• Pixel 4
• Pixel 4 XL
• Pixel 4a
• Pixel 4a (5G)
• Pixel 5

Additionally, Google has narrowed the pool of eligible devices further by only enabling car crash detection for devices in Australia, the UK and the US. It seems that the feature will not form a part of Android 12 either, based on recent leaks and the first developer preview.

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