I don't know if anyone elses garmin watch does this but if I have the not so reliable collision detection switched on and it detects a collision then it will automatically delete the current activity which if you are actually in an accident and needed the data like this guy would make it harder or impossible to retrieve. Not exactly a helpful feature.
this post was submitted on 05 Aug 2025
24 points (100.0% liked)
Bicycling
2851 readers
36 users here now
A community for those who enjoy bicycling for any reason— utility, recreation, sport, or whatever!
Post your questions, experiences, knowledge, pictures, news, links, and (civil) rants.
Rules (to be added on an as-needed basis)
- Comments and posts should be respectful and productive.
- No ads or commercial spam, including linking to your own monetized content.
- Linked content should be as unburdened by ads and trackers as possible.
Welcome!
founded 2 years ago
MODERATORS
That's not good. I've inadvertently triggered the crash detection on my 830 a few times (by stopping quickly) and had to cancel the alert it was going to send to my wife, so I haven't seen what it actually does if I don't cancel. It definitely shouldn't delete the activity.
I have had a few incidents that thankfully weren't too bad but have sent out the text to my family. After you have cleared the warning it returns back to your default watch screen with no indication that any activity took place.
There is no acknowledgment inside the app either that you have had an "incident" or that there is any kind of partial activity data, everything just acts as though you never went out on any kind of activity.
Like you say, it isn't good at all. I have switched that stuff off now anyway as along with those questionable choices above I was sick of having it give false positives and scrambling to try and cancel it, or not realising it was giving a false positive and then my family worrying and me losing my data for that session.
Although obviously not ideal in all situations I would rather an option to be able to manually send coordinates should I have an incident I needed help. That wouldn't help in situations where I wasnt conscious but neither is having it switched off because its functionality is annoying.
I'd check with Garmin on that - something doesn't sound right. Fortunately I've never had a situation to truly test it, but I can't imagine my Garmin deleting the activity.
A friend of mine crashed during a group ride a few weeks ago, and I stopped his Garmin manually later. But I don't know if he had the crash detection and alert set up; it would have triggered long before any of us thought of it. I don't recall hearing his phone's alarm sound that mine makes when I trigger it, so he probably doesn't have it set up.
To be honest after a few too many false positives I have disabled the "feature" entirely anyway so it isn't an issue for me any longer and with the way garmin has gone recently I want to move away from that ecosystem entirely, my watch is just still perfectly fine and I don't want to waste money on stuff I don't need xD
@theskyisfalling @limelight79 With the emergency feature sucking, boring live sharing of location would be the next best right? At least then your loved ones know where you are when you don't return.
I think it's also quite possible that the driver is so deranged that they believe the story they gave police. After all, I'm a good driver, how could I make a mistake? It must be the cyclist's fault!
You're too kind. I honestly believe they do that (lie) because there's a very good chance they'll get away with it.
I mean, it was only because the cyclist tracks their ride that the driver was caught lying. If that data didn't exist, it would be the driver's word against the cyclist, and because of his injuries, he couldn't remember.
Just imagine had the cyclist died, the family would live out their lives believing their loved one was the cause of his own death. So fucked up. Liars should be reamed out by the court.
I didn't mean it to be kind. I meant that the driver could actually be that detached from reality.
@limelight79 @Showroom7561 Yeah: 'I looked and they weren't there, therefore the only possible way I could have hit them is if they did this weird and implausible manoeuvre'
People will invent stories to tell themselves to feel good. They then will tell everyone else the story like it is fact.
People make for terrible evidence.
Log data with a computer. It is much harder to trick yourself this way.