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When you get in a car accident, technology is your best friend. Your seatbelt secures you, your airbags deploy automatically, you call an ambulance or a tow truck on your cell phone, and so on. The protective role of technology just grew some more, as an automatic crash notification phone app called My911 can now eliminate a few more steps from the crash back to security. While your airbags are deploying, your phone will already be making the call that may save your life.

Recently, concepts like Onstar have pushed things further, beginning the emergency response process before you could get your phone out of your pocket. The next step has been to get this automatic collision notification on your smartphone, and My911 has done it.

At first glance, it may seem like this could be asking more of your phone than it was made to handle. But the truth is, smartphones now come equipped with the same technology behind what tells your airbags when to deploy: an accelerometer. If you’ve ever seen a teenager standing in line or sitting at the bus stop, tilting his iphone from side to side, or used an in-phone GPS navigation system and wondered how your phone can track your movement so well, then you’ve seen the accelerometer in action. This same technology has now been patented to recognize crash-like G-forces instead of measuring tilts from side to side.

Once your phone has sensed the crash, GPS technology allows it to explain where you are more precisely and quickly than we humans can, even if you’re on your own street and fully conscious. The real peace of mind that this brings, though, is in the case of a severe crash when all in the car might be knocked unconscious. This eliminates some of the “what if” scenarios and makes the process more efficient whether the worst happens or not.

But “what if” your phone is wrong? First, you can manually cancel the automatic collision notification. Then, even if the call does go through, the person who picks up is an operator who will attempt to talk to you before sending your location to the emergency response center. This concept didn’t exist a few years ago, and now it can be the norm for us!

Jacob and Gregory have learned and researched automatic crash notification and comprehend how it work. Check out the My911 site for more information on this car-safety-must-have. You can get a free 14-day trial here as well.