I can assure you this is not the case with all Toyota models or even most. It's often integrated into the radio instead of a separate module, or simply not on a dedicated fuse, but sometimes it is. Disabling it can also lose other features of the car such as navigation, remote start, the Bluetooth mic, or the mandatory eCall feature if you're in the EU.
and similar things have happened about once a year ever since. Now in the news article I linked to a huge part of the problem was that the police didn't follow it up correctly, went to where the accident had been reported rather than where it had occurred, didn't see anything, and then gave up.
But if the car had rung from where it had actually crashed then the incident would have EISEC[1] data tagged to it, which would have given them actual co-ordinates to hit.
Here in Holland we must even have a mobile phone module in every car so it can call the emergencies in case of a crash.