911 Problems

[EricJ]

So on my way to work this morning, I drive past a significant accident that happened just moments before and blocking the fast lane on a 2 lay highway immediately after a curve with no visibility. After nearly becoming the 3rd car involved but just barely avoiding it I try to call 911 to report it to get police there to keep it from getting worse. (there is no place to pull over to stop to help, as there is no shoulder on this road, which makes it that much more dangerous)

Anyway, I called 5!! times and every time I get the generic recording "all circuits are busy, if this is an emergency, please try calling again" ...Seriously?! "If this is an Emergency???" I'm calling freaking 911, what do you think it is?!

Anyway, after this I give up as it's probably been 5-7 minutes and figure someone must have gotten through about it. Later I spoke to someone else at my work who got caught in the back up behind the accident, and tells me it looked like 12-14 cars ended up pilling into it.

That was my morning, ranting makes me feel better :)

[Hinton]

Glad to hear that you avoided the accident. That's just amazing that you couldn't get through to 911.

[supervike]

I worry about the future of 911 calls. Most of it is funded by a surcharge on your home LANDLINE phone. So, keeping up with technology has never been an issue. But, as folks forgo the landlines, and migrate to either Cell phones or VOiP, these programs are finding themselves seriously underfunded.

I think there has been some legislation pointed at requiring Cell companies to collect a fee, but I'm not sure where that is, legally speaking.


911 circuits actually take precedence over regular voice and data traffic, but ALL CIRCUITS BUSY could actually be a multitude of other problems not even related to the Emergency lines. Anything from low bandwidith by the closest Cell Tower, to switching problems in the local Central Office (or cable cuts, electronics issues, etc. etc.).

If you care to bother, I think I'd call the local police's NON-Emergency number and inform them of the issue (time and date as well). You may not get someone who gives a rats ass, but then again, maybe you'll get someone who can pass the info on....At the very least, they can check the circuits to make sure they are running at full capacity.

I worked on 911 circuits for a while in my tenure here at the PHONE COMPANY, and of all the things we do, that was the one department that was actually very on top of the game.

[EricJ]

yeah, I would have called the police or highway patrol, but since I was driving, I didn't have the number on me. It did make me worried for the future of 911 also, I have no doubt if I I managed to get through it would have been handled well...but I just couldn't get through which indicates some technology problem. Mind you, this was also at 6:40am, and I can't imagine how many people could have been getting into emergencies at that time!

[Frustrated Father]

It is a very sad state of affairs in my opinion and I think 911 IS to blame for a good bit of stuff actually, particularly the folks that are wearing their asshats that are manning the line.


http://www.cnn.com/video/#/video/us/2008/02/12/dnt.911.bed.on.fire.wfmz?iref=videosearch

[supervike]

Yeah, I can't defend asshats.

Just in my experience, 911 operators have been extremely professional and diligent. But, I come from small town mid-west....I think that may skew my perspective.

[Jabberwocky]

Sorry to hear about your experience, Eric. I work in an emergency department and you would be surprised at what constitutes an "emergency" to some folks. I have seen more than I would care to admit that utilize 911 and the EMS system as an expensive taxi ride to get their minor medical issues evaluated. Although at 6:40 in the morning you would think that unlikely...

[Frustrated Father]

That's another thing, I think folks calling for non-emergency issues should be fined and fine rather heavily.

[Valmont]

As a side note, sometimes you don't have a choice. I've had problems getting connected to the local police line a couple times. I try to get the "Random Local Police Number" and the fine person in the international call center routes me to 911, not what I'm trying to get.

[Ritual]

Yeah, people call emergency for all sorts of things... Locking themselves out of the house, can't get the car to start etc. Heavy fines for those people! Agreed!

[Bexley]

Yeah, I can't defend asshats.

Just in my experience, 911 operators have been extremely professional and diligent. But, I come from small town mid-west....I think that may skew my perspective.

I was almost a 911 operator here in Minneapolis last year. I was ranked number one for the job, and they were hiring three people. I went into the call center, briefly learned their phone system, and sat in on calls for about an hour and a half. Obviously, I can't vouch for other cities, but the training is fairly rigorous, and the computer aided system for dispatching emergency services (which apparently is an upgrade which most cities, large and small, already have- Mpls. was behind the times) means it would be hard to fault the operators or the system for any problems.

Lines do get tied up all the time, though, not because the system is poor, but because so many people have cell phones. When there's an accident or fire, they get anywhere from hundreds to thousands of calls about it, depending on where it is or the time of day.

[Avelorn]

Me and a friend spoke about this recently. She worked at a fast-food restaurant and had to call 911 (112 in Sweden) pretty often to take care of the usual fistfights and so on. She said that pretty often she couldn't get through and I was shocked, never heard of it before. However she called from an IP phone so we figured it could be something about that, limitation in the restaurants or the phonecompany's devices instead of in the emergency department. Not sure though but I think more people would have reacted here if it was a real problem.