This post is a bit different from the technology news that we generally cover here at TechCrunch. But it’s something that I think needs to be said.
Last night I got word that my parents had witnessed a tragic accident while driving in Northern California. I won’t get into the details, but suffice to say one person was killed and others were left bleeding, in various states of unconsciousness. Thank God my parents were not hurt in the accident, but they witnessed it first hand, as well as the disturbing aftermath.
Immediately after the accident, my parents and other witnesses began trying to dial 9-1-1. Attempt after attempt resulted in a busy signal. This isn’t unusual in the event of an emergency, as multiple dialers often tie up the lines to report the same incident. Except it seems that nobody managed to get through for far too long: emergency personal didn’t arrive for 20 minutes. The first officer to arrive at the scene said it took him two minutes to get there from the time he got the call. Which means that it took approximately 18 minutes for the news to reach him in the first place.
During a conversation with my father following the accident, he said one of the most profound things I’ve heard since I arrived in Silicon Valley: “Why is it that I can pull out my cell phone and call France or browse the Internet whenever I want, but I got a busy signal for 9-1-1 for 20 minutes?” I wish I had an answer for him.
In the United States, we’re taught from a very young age to call 9-1-1 whenever there’s an emergency. Something bad happens, you call that number, and someone on the other line will be there to help you. Getting a busy signal after dialing 9-1-1 is the closest thing you can have to a mental null set. It doesn’t compute.
But it’s apparently happening more often than most people would believe. A recent report in the Sacramento Bee says that more than 26% of all wireless calls to 911 in California are “abandoned” — in other words, more than a quarter of the people calling 911 hang up in frustration before they even get to talk to someone. In a world where we can interact with people across the world at a moment’s notice, I just don’t understand how one of the things we’ve always taken for granted can fail so miserably.
Now, I’ll be totally upfront and admit that I know relatively little about the way 911 dispatchers work. I am sure that the incident can be fully explained by a lack of staffing at the CHP center that routed the call, or maybe the fact that the accident occurred near a county line caused some jurisdiction issues. I don’t know what the reason was. But as far as I’m concerned, the discussion shouldn’t get that far. This is the kind of problem that we shouldn’t have allowed to form in the first place. It’s as if we’ve forgotten the fundamental reason why most of us keep cell phones with us at all times: to keep each other safe.
At its core, this is more a political issue than a purely technological problem: more money needs to be routed to the right places. But at the same time, there’s no denying that technology plays an important role here — the call routing systems could probably be made more efficient. Calling filters could be improved. Perhaps the system could detect when multiple phones were calling from the same area and inform callers that an accident had already been reported. Whatever the answer, things need to change. And given how upset we get over homepage redesigns and SMS fees, why not exhibit a bit of outrage when technology fails us in a matter of life or death?
As one final note, I hope this doesn’t come across as an attack on the men and women who staff emergency call centers, or the law enforcement officers and paramedics who respond to the scene. I have the utmost respect for everything they do. I just wish that the infrastructure supporting them was as up to the task as they are.
Public Enemy – 911 (Is a joke)
http://www.yout...h?v=EcKhscio25M
Now I dialed 911 a long time ago
Don’t you see how late they’re reactin’
They only come and they come when they wanna
So get the morgue embalm the goner
They don’t care ’cause they stay paid anyway
They teach ya like an ace they can’t be betrayed
I know you stumble with no use people
If your life is on the line they you’re dead today
Late comings with the late comin’ stretcher
That’s a body bag in disguise y’all betcha
I call ‘em body snatchers quick they come to fetch ya?
With an autopsy ambulance just to dissect ya
They are the kings ’cause they swing amputation
Lose your arms, your legs to them it’s compilation
I can prove it to you watch the rotation
It all adds up to a funky situation
So get up get, get get down
911 is a joke in yo town
Get up, get, get, get down
Late 911 wears the late crown
911 is a joke
Everyday they don’t never come correct
You can ask my man right here with the broken neck
He’s a witness to the job never bein’ done
He would’ve been in full in 8 9-11
Was a joke ’cause they always jokin’
They the token to your life when it’s croakin’
They need to be in a pawn shop on a
911 is a joke we don’t want ‘em
I call a cab ’cause a cab will come quicker
The doctors huddle up and call a flea flicker
The reason that I say that ’cause they
Flick you off like fleas
They be laughin’ at ya while you’re crawlin’ on your knees
And to the strength so go the length
Thinkin’ you are first when you really are tenth
You better wake up and smell the real flavor
Cause 911 is a fake life saver
So get up, get, get get down
911 is a joke in yo town
Get up, get, get, get down
Late 911 wears the late crown
Ow, ow 911 is a joke
Rest assured, Google 911 is about to soft launch into beta.
…and if my local sheriff does not pay to be listed with Google then I will get a national paid placement rent-a-cop security firm instead?
I have stopped using Google becasue I hate that my search’s top results have Google’s financial interest in mind… not mine.
That’s ridonc Waldo. You haven’t stopped using Google – that’s impossible.
That’s stupid, Waldo. You think Yahoo is any better? Or any other search engine out there? And really.. what does that even mean? Sounds like crazy technophobe babble to me.
Pay to get listed, I’m not sure it works that way.
Thank you for this! Thank you thank you thank you! Enough with the Google already. Enough with their countless number of apps. Enough with them trying to bully all IT companies, from the biggest ones (Microsoft, iPhone) to smallest ones, “supporting” open-source while they are not release almost any of their software. They were “just a search engine” and there were lots of web ad companies. How did we come here?
Don’t be evil, just kiss my ….
I bet the people that HAVE been saved by a 911 call, would strongly disagree with you.
Yes, that’s very true. But the people who have been let down by, insulted by, abandoned by, or just plain have not been able to reach 9-1-1 in an emergency have just as much right to a voice as those who have been helped have. Postive experiences with 9-1-1 do NOT negate the negatives. In fact, I’d argue that paying attention to those 9-1-1 has failed is far more important to focus on if we ever intend on fixing the flaws in the system, of which there are many.
The vast majority of 9-1-1 dispatchers are wonderful people who do a very, very difficult job. But their infrastructure IS CRUMBLING, and the dispatchers who aren’t so wonderful and as a result actually are responsible for the deaths and injuries of the people who call in to get assistance – these are the things that must be focused on and rooted out.
Reward and recognize the good, by all means. I firmly believe in that. But focus on and repair the bad, or the whole thing crumbles. You cannot have a strong house on a shattered foundation.
I understand what Philip is trying to get at. But as you say “But focus on and repair the bad, or the whole thing crumbles.” His comment is preaching to the choir while agreeing with the article and there is no idea or incite as to how the 911 system works, where it fails, or any ideas on how to fix it.
While I don’t provide any of that either, I don’t appreciate the fact that he’s posting the lyrics to a rap song which is taking up valuable screen space and further pushing down a comment that could be a valuable incite to how the system can be fixed.
The one time I found myself in a situation where I needed to dial 911 it was a very fast and efficient process.
I can’t imagine what it would have been like if the call hadn’t gone through.
@Eric: I agree that the rap song is not exactly as meaningful as some of the other comments on this post. Too bad it was among the first. They really need a “Vote comment up/down” feature here.
Look at the state. There are constant budget cuts. Guess who gets hit? Public safety. We whine about overpaid 911 dispatchers and say they should be fired whenever they slip up. So who would want the job? It’s a very high stress job too.
Also don’t forget that the “Enhanced 911″ taxes we’ve been paying for years have been funding anything but E-911. State governments and the telcos have been siphoning off the funds for years.
You’re totally right Bob, I have been a 911 dispatcher for more than 10 years at the 2nd largest municipal police department in the country. Due to our city’s budget problems, all 911 dispatchers will now be forced to take off 1 unpaid work day every other week. Don’t worry though, the trash truck drivers were exempted from this because they provide “essential service”. So what is 911?
P.S. Busy signals are pretty much a CHP problem and not a local police problem. We answer 90% of our 911 calls within 10 seconds. The main problem on 911 is that the VAST MAJORITY of 911 calls are NOT emergencies. 75% of my agency’s calls each weekend are noise complaints (Loud parties/radios). Ridiculous.
PE is the first place my mind went as well.
FIX SEARCH PUB!!!
once again…
my boys grif (and others) were waaaaay ahead of their time!!!
gotta love PE!!!
if people took seriously what they were saying about the 911, and what alot of others had said about the cops, and other social ills, might have a better place!!
peace!
You shouldn’t call 911 in California… you should call your local police department. Otherwise it goes through Sacramento and takes much longer. I live in San Jose, and I always use the direct emergency number for the San Jose PD, (408) 277-8911. I advise you learn the relevant numbers for the Bay Area.
This is not true in many areas. 911 calls made from certain carriers will go to CHP dispatch in Vallejo, but most of them will go to the PSAP of the jurisdiction that you’re in.
Hilarious
This is incredible, I’m not from the USA but I think that this country is the most rich and advanced in the world(in a lot of things), but I can’t believe that you don’t have a decent emergency call system there! this is incredible!!!
Quite true. It takes more time to get to speak to someone at 911 than to actually for the first person to arrive at the spot. My neighbor met with the same situation a month ago. He was on his way to San Dimas when his car dashed against another speeding, drunk-driven car. After hitting my neighbor’s car, the man hit against a nearby tree. When my neighbor tried calling 911, it was busy…for almost 25 minutes and when the first help arrived, the man in the car was half-dead. He did not recover. Wish 911 operates more effectively.
Well said.
Uhmm, infrastructure costs money… Republicans don’t believe in government… the governor of California is?
I wouldn’t say this is a direct correlation to the governor being Republican. However, you are absolutely correct that things like this cost tax dollars, pure and simple. And if revenue is falling, services get worse. You are also right that the Republicans for the most part, in their eagerness to be loved (by some), are for all intents and purposes waging a war against government provided services.
IMO this is an example of something that should be handled at a federal, not a state, level and ideally as far removed from politics as possible.
Given the sophistication of technology available to us today should it really matter if the operator picking up a 911 call for an accident in California is located a mile down the road or in Minnestota? Details of the location and resource deployment should be as easily available as if they were a block away
I really don’t care about jurisdiction issues and county lines if I have an emergency.
My own experiences have been great – the two times we’ve needed to dial 9-1-1 in the US have been met with prompt and efficient service, but if either of those had taken 20 minutes rather than sub 5 response time I don’t like to think how much worse the problem would have been
Give the guys and girls on the front line the tools to do their job, don’t let some pork barrelling politician (county, state or federal) let it slip
And your evidence is …..
The reality is that 911 cost tax dollars. And people believe that there is a line item somewhere in the budget reading “Waste and fraud”.
There is less waste and fraud that people would like to believe. What is there is inefficiency because tax dollars are uncertain from year to year. Planning more more than a year is hard if every year a program has to fight to survive.
California is too busy paying for schooling and medical services for illegals to worry about services for law abiding, taxpayers.And I’m afraid the rest of the country is close behind.
Woo! It’s definitely all the fault of illegal immigrants.
They killed Michael Jackson too.
Not exactly. The state is broke, and we one of the highest taxed states in the country. The democrats have been in power for a long time. Stop blaming republicans for the problems that the democrats have introduced.
it’s true that california imposes the highest taxes in the nation, but is one of the lowest (if not the lowest), when taxes are divided by income. in other words, if you live in oregon you don’t pay a sales tax, and the highest income tax bracket is 9.0%, compared to california’s 10.3% maximum. however, in oregon you won’t earn close to what you will in california.
additionally, california voters passed a proposition years ago that requires a 2/3rds majority to pass a budget. a legislature comprised of a majority democrats simply can’t pass a budget without some republicans voting yes.
so, while i share your sentiment, the premises of your argument are incorrect.
Mr. Cammer, you are free to pay extra to Sacramento if you are feeling undertaxed
@Bleeding Heart –
I think Ryan Cammer is saying that he prefers 911 to pick up when he has been injured in a car wreck. I am happy to hear that you don’t care if emergency services response to your accident. Kindly put a sticker to that effect on the side of your car:
I eagerly await photographic proof that you are not a hypocrite.
Ryan: your premise is also false. You claim that Californians should have a higher % tax because they make more than people in Oregon.
First of all, the highest tax bracket is NOT 10.3% by far. Maybe in one part of the income taxes, but not all parts. My father pays at least 30% to the state and even more to the feds.
The fact is, 10% of 100k is not 10% of 200k. If you justify taking a larger percent of taxes because someone makes more money, it completely nullifies the point of taking a % in the first place.
“Republicans don’t believe in government…” huh??? The GOP of the 80’s does not believe in government, but today’s GOP is all big business embedded in big government. The bailouts and company ownership was a Bush/GOP policy…
The governor of California is not republican. He masqueraded as a republican to get voted in office, months later he flipped. Almost all he does is on the liberal side. Seriously, if he was really republican, you would hear much more about how “bad” he is in the news. I haven’t heard news on him in ages.
agreed! as tech makes inroads to frontier areas, it should make sure it handles core, basic needs well
Of course dialing 9-1-1 and getting a busy signal could be greatly reduced if all the people dialing 9-1-1 actually had an emergency. I don’t know what the exact percentage is, but tons of daily 9-1-1 calls are NOT emergencies at all. Ever seen the reoccurring segment from the Tonight Show with Jay Leno that played 9-1-1 calls that had nothing to do with an emergency at all?
New York City has made some inroads into that. To relieve the 911 services, they created 311 for municipal and city services. You’re supposed to call that to report non-emergencies…
Most countries handle this simply and elegantly.
Make a frivolous emergency call, and a significant fee is attached to your phone bill.
Do it a second time, you get an even bigger bill and your phone number is suspended for a while.
Do it a third time and criminal charges are filed.
That said, most places started out by designing their cell networks to always route calls to the closest emergency center. We started by routing calls to a central location, usually far away from where you are, and have only “backed in” to routing calls more efficiently. Even in the most rural areas, the cell tower location is all that’s needed to get you to the right location, GPS-based information can provide EMS with additional information.
The core of the argument is right though, we need to improve the infrastructure so calls get to the right place, as quickly as possible.
But I wanted the chicken nuggets and it was an emergency…
If I recall correctly, about 95 % of 911 calls are not emergencies.
It happens enough that a lot of dispatch centers have a button to transfer callers to a recording saying that 911 is for emergency situations only.
Funny, because lots of police departments have people answering the phones and telling the caller to use 911 for non-emergency things like auto theft and disturbing the peace.
Yes, but while that recording is playing, the caller is still tying up a line that could be used for real emergencies.
Made me think of this call to 911 because the woman didn’t get the burger how she wanted it.
http://www.yout...h?v=FZ12Ry-hD6I
911 needs to have a way to manage these non-emergency calls. There needs to be a better way for 911 to measure significance of calls.
They don’t want to charge people a fee non-emergency calls because they don’t want people to fear calling 911 in an emergency, but it’s a shame that hamburgers get attention while people in real need can’t get help.
There is a simple way to solve this. In Illinois It’s a crime to call 911 if there is not an emergency and so for fear of being charged with such crime most people reserve it for emergencies. On the other hand I do agree with EH about how police departments often refer callers to 911 for things they should be able to handle themselves as well this is such an important service that it a should work regardless of an uptick in normal call volume. If necessary route the traffic to a another center.
I’ve always found out the non-emergency line to the police station wherever I’ve lived and worked. It’s a good practice, more people should do.
I’m here in Philadelphia, one of the largest cities in the country.
I called the police to report someone backing into my parked car and leaving (hit-and-run). I need a police report to be able to make an insurance claim for this type of accident. I know from previous experience that they won’t take a report for an accident like this at the station, so I have to get an officer to come take the report.
The person on the phone says I have to call 911 for this. I tell her it’s not an emergency, and she repeats that all traffic violations have to go to 911.
So now I have to take up some 911 dispatcher’s time, and waste a police officer’s time, to take this simple report, because it can’t be done over the phone, or online, and they require a 911 call.
Not only that, but the 911 dispatcher says an officer will come to take the report, and nobody ever shows up.
Kurt mentions a worthy topic that should be mentioned in this article: Utilization of 911 service for non-emergency services.
Let’s take an advantage of those smart geo location aware phones and start looking up non emergency service numbers, when presented w/ a non emergency situations.
you shush phones are for porn…
Jason,
You wrote one of the most profound and meaningful posts within TC in a long long time. Meaningful enough, that authorities upon reading your account will find a way to stop this tragedy unfold on other victims.
I can’t help but pray for those victims.
Thanks for sharing. You are a good soul. Your heart was troubled enough to express this.
Hopefully, someone will pay attention to your call for action.
Not sure if it still occurs here in LA but there have been times (years ago) where I’d gotten a recording instead of someone answering. Well it wasn’t like a leave message at the beep kind of recording but that all their lines were busy.
That’s so scary! I have this nightmare all the time – that I’m calling 911 and can’t get through. So horrible that it really does happen!!
There could be an automated “triage” system for when you don’t get through it could take your name and statement of situation (which could be voice stress analysied to help the triage). Then if you can’t hold the line (your performing CPR or something) then you’re at least in the queue for people needing an ambulance!
Press 1 for Ambulance, etc…
Press 1 for a situation in which loss of life appears imminent (this might put on hold a prior caller that is established by the operator to be a non-life-threatening situation and put you through), …
Attend to the injured now if no-one else is present or hold the line; [pause] Press 1 if the patient is bleeding, 2 if the patient has been burnt, 3 if electrocuted, 4 …
Potentially the dispatch could already have been made before your even get to speak to the operator.
If someone is holding the line you may as well take as much info as you can so that when the line is free you can quickly establish the situation and dispatch the appropriate resources.
Some systems already do this. But, trust me when you’re in an accident and the person next to is bleeding the last you you work to hear is “dial 1 for …” followed by elevator music. (And yes this has happened to me)
the problem with “Attend to the injured now if no-one else is present or hold the line; [pause] Press 1 if the patient is bleeding, 2 if the patient has been burnt, 3 if electrocuted, 4 …”, is that it would Take WAYYYYYY too long. currently, when we are dispatched to a medical call we recieve a priority from the dispatch center that is made up of a number, followed by a letter, followed by a letter, followed by a number. the fist number is what type of medical emergency(i.e. 19= heart problems). the Letter represents the severity from A-E (Alpha, Bravo, Charlie, Delta, Echo). Alpha being the least serious, Echo being the most serious (cardiac arrest is an echo designated call). The last number gives us specific details (i.e. a 19-C-1 = not alert)
19. Heart Problems
A-1 – Heart rate 130 (without prior symptoms)
C-4 – Cocaine
D-1 – Firing of implanted defibrillator
contd.
… for the most part it’s simply a staffing and routing problem. More money needs to be invested in Emergency services so that a quick response and excellent services are provided. It’s sad that many areas Including NYC have cut firefighter, firehouses, police officers, and other civil service employees that are integral to the safety of their residents; because god forbid the salary of the mayor’s secretary gets cut, or they don’t spend a few hundred thousand on new AC units when they’re laying people off.
just a quick note. I’m not a paid FF, I’m a volunteer, but it’s just sad that essential services have to be cut the way they are in some areas.
it happens. even in malaysia.. I had the worse experience of my call not being picked up for 15mins and when I finally got them, the operator had sounded very sleepy, frustrating!
I share the pain. It has happened to me before. However I would like to clarify the following in your post
“. A recent report in the Sacramento Bee says that more than 26% of all wireless calls to 911 in California are “abandoned” — in other words, more than a quarter of the people calling 911 hang up in frustration before they even get to talk to someone.”
The 26% of the callers could be “possibly” frustrated. There is no way to find out why they hung up. One of the main reasons on why people hang up on 911 is that they dialed the number by an accident to begin with. In a highly unscientific survey of my friends all of them confessed that on average they had dialed 911 by an accident and they hung up. People have tried to come up with a national shared-service 911 call center idea (kinda like shared electrical grid) but it was shot down multiple times due to how these call centers are funded. I hope they figure out an ubiquitous solution that works across landlines, VoIP, and mobile. It is a shame for a western country such as US where people are placed on hold under emergency conditions.
There isn’t a problem with the system, it’s a problem with the public. If we weren’t so desperate and quick to call 911 there would never be busy lines, as said above very few calls are real emergencies, don’t blame the system.
Ignoring the very evident, very real, very troubling problems in the 9-1-1 system that have been expounded on by years by the people who run the system themselves just because people misuse the system is an unbelievably ignorant, closed-minded argument.
You cannot control how the public acts. You CAN control the fact that your infrastructure is terrible and some of your dispatchers have no business being on the other end of that call.
Both sides need to take responsibility on this one, it isn’t so one-sided.
“You Cannot Control how the Public Acts” … don’t tell that to the all the behavioral economists (many who work for the Obama administration), who do believe that you can create incentives (and disincentives) to get people to act how you want.
In the video they said some guy had called over 5000 times for no reason. Sorry but that’s the call centers fault. The guy probably has some mental disorder so telling him to stop isn’t going to work. After the 3rd time he called his number should be blocked and he should be arrested. If they just sit there and answer his calls all day then they can’t really blame anyone but themselves.
…and when he does have an emergency and dies the public blame the service for being terrible and they all get sued and lose their jobs. good idea!
After you get a 911 busy signal try this: Dial 411 (information) and ask for the number of the California Highway Patrol (or equivalent for your location). Then have the 411 system connect you. If you are connected to the wrong location, explain the situation to the dispatcher who answers and let them sort it out. They know how to do this.
It’s also good to say your cell phone number when you are first connected to law enforcement. They will call you back if the signal is dropped or they need more information.
Alternatively, call someone you know who has a landline and a phone book or internet access, give them the information and let them call the authorities. They don’t have to be local. The police don’t care where the call comes from as long as the information is good and they can send help.
I’m living in the south of French and it isn’t much better here. I found a woman crashed into a tree with her car on a mountain road. I stabilized her and called the emergency number with my mobile phone, first of all they didn’t speak English and they had no way to locate my position.
Hmm, rural France and they don’t speak English. Who would have guessed? So any normal person would simply speak French right?
While I also thought, “uh, duh, you were in France,” this is actually a real problem, even here in the States. If emergency lines don’t have adequate ways to understand people, how can they be helpful. They need to be able to translate as many languages as possible.
Seriously? Come on, it’s totally unreasonable to expect them to speak English.
@Ethan, @Rob lives in “the south of French,” so he probably means a place like French Lick, Indiana. That’s Larry Bird’s hometown. Larry, like all good French Lickers, speaks English. I would expect nothing less from their 911 dispatchers. Keep fighting the good fight, Rob.
English is one of the most widely spoken languages in the world and must be the most common language in Europe.
Having an English speaker in a French dispatch call centre would be near essential IMO. Ditto an Urdu/Mandarin speaker in the UK. Operators then need training to recognise unfamiliar languages.
They don’t need much skill, they need to be able to say “i don’t know much $Language” “what’s happened” and be able to look up words in a dictionary “fire”, “crash” and the like. Then they need to say “help is coming”. That’s going to be 100% better than just “desole, je ne comprend pas, bon journee”.
Indeed someone with a high school certificate in French should know enough to get the information needed to send fire/police/ambulance to an address and work out the rough nature of the situation. The reverse I’m sure is true too.
In short I don’t think their expectations were too high.
You’re kidding, right? Right? Oh please tell me you are.
A (french) paramedic volunteer, I’ve been taken on a tour of the 911 call center in Paris. Some firefighter took a call and as the caller’s French was not very good he asked him where he was from (Romania) and got a translator on line for a 3-way call within 20 seconds. There was a list of 20+ languages he could select from, I was very impressed.
On scene, don’t expect a 20 year old firefighter (or even an experienced ER MD) to have great language skills. But then if you can speak it’s ususally not that bad. And most of the time there’s some friend around to translate.
The pan-European emergency number is 112. Right now, in France, this is routed to the department level firefighter station. Depending where you’re calling from, you’ll get excellent service (Paris) or something more “rural”. I’d be happy if my tax euros would be used to create a bona-fide multilingual European call center.
But them something else to consider is that emergency protocols vary probably as much as languages.
You’re LIVING in the South of France and you expect everyone to accommodate your language? come on
Yeah, it’s not that unrealistic.
Shouldn’t a 911 dispatcher in California either speak Spanish or have someone there to translate/take over?
“I’m living in the south of French”
“first of all they didn’t speak English”
Oh, the irony…
I was a 911 operator in Arizona, There are so many reasons why the system fails. Jurisdictions do play a role in certain situations. Most cities have a Mutual Aid system setup where no matter where you are the closest unit responds but this doesn’t apply to private fire companies which many states have. So if you call 911 on a county island it might get routed to City Police, County Police then to the private Fire company. There can be a breakdown in communication at any point. Alot of people dont know this either that in most county response areas a Code 3 call has up to 20 mins to respond and still be within emergency guidelines. In your case 20 minutes to get the call routed is a joke but I have experienced it before.
In Seattle there’s the triple 7 rule for life-threatening medical calls. 7 minutes for first responders to get to scene. 7 minutes to have patient ready for transport by paramedics. And 7 minutes to get to the hospital.
See the section “Which City is Best” at http://www.usat...2-directors.htm
Also wanted to add I have all of the local city police non emergency numbers programmed into my phone. Any emergency service can quickly transfer you to the correct City/Service if needed.
I recently lived in a East Coast city where it was much faster to call the non-emergency police line then to wait 30 seconds for the first 9-1-1 call taker then another 30 seconds for the second call taker.
Jason makes the flawed assumption that the cause for the busy signal is a result of the Emergency Dispatch center and not an external source including but not limited to time of day, weather, location, cell phone provider and/or telephone make and model.
Failing to ignore other reasons as to why the issue may be prevalent is counter intuitive to the discussion.
Furthermore, Kincaid claims, “in other words, more than a quarter of the people calling 911 hang up in frustration before they even get to talk to someone,” when citing a a statistic.
When reviewing the article that the statistic was linked to … the assertion that Kincaid assumes is not even entertained. They do not theorize as to why 26% hang up because they do not know why.
Perhaps, it could be due to other external reasons such as but not limited to: it was an accident, issue was resolved, someone else made contact, dropped call etc.
I understand the underlying reasons for this post but at the same time let’s put on our thinking caps.
I wasn’t going to comment on this topic at all, but, really?
“… limited to time of day, weather, location, cell phone provider and/or telephone make and model.”
Where do you live exactly where basic telephoning functionality ceases to work between operators? Because where-ever it is needs a good dose of the 21st century, and maybe a Penicillin shot.
““Why is it that I can pull out my cell phone and call France or browse the Internet whenever I want, but I got a busy signal for 9-1-1 for 20 minutes?” I wish I had an answer for him.”
When calling France, you’re probably calling a specific person, who has few (if any) other people calling him just then. Browsing the internet, you’re connecting to machines, which are shared but have very high capacity. Calling 9-1-1 tries to connect you to a high-demand living person. Why is it surprising this is the least efficient of the three?
“In the United States, we’re taught from a very young age to call 9-1-1 whenever there’s an emergency.”
Depends on where you live. I went to college in upstate NY, and (in a town of ~50,000) they only got 9-1-1 service in the late 1990’s. We had stickers next to our phones with the numbers for the fire department, police, and emergency room. The rules for when it’s acceptable to call 9-1-1 also seem to vary significantly by location.
“more than a quarter of the people calling 911 hang up in frustration before they even get to talk to someone. In a world where we can interact with people across the world at a moment’s notice, I just don’t understand how one of the things we’ve always taken for granted can fail so miserably”
Maybe it’s the same as it’s always been, but expectations have changed. If Google doesn’t respond for 10 seconds, I go somewhere else. Perhaps people are calling 9-1-1, hearing that they can’t get an answer in 10 seconds, and giving up. You yourself set expectations pretty high by saying “we can interact with people across the world at a moment’s notice”, with no admission that 9-1-1 operators are completely different from your uncle in Paris or google.com.
“It’s as if we’ve forgotten the fundamental reason why most of us keep cell phones with us at all times: to keep each other safe.”
Hah! If that were true, you probably wouldn’t see quite so many people talking and texting on their phones while driving their cars through busy intersections.
Bay Area? Always have the sheriff/police sub-stations on speed dial.
maybe if people stopped using 911 for non emergency calls it would help like “Father Calls 911: Found Hair in His Chinese Food”
That is indeed one of the problems
Here in europe countries are required to do geolocation for cellphone-based emerency calls. 65% of Dutch 112 (out 911) calls are answered within 2 seconds or something I believe, the highest in the EU. So we have speed over here, but still no locating us. Apparently something about non-existing agreements between Telco’s and 911 centers.
911 does have geolocating. There were a couple of cases in North Dakota I believe where people were trapped and lost in a snowstorm. They tried to use the cell phone to call for help but there was this problem of locating where the victims actually where. This happened 13 years ago in 1996.
The 911 system works far better than the system in place 20 years ago so stop whining.
Yes, now that we’ve beaten 1989’s standards I think it’s safe to rest easy.
Other than being on the Internet within minutes registering your disgust throughout the world, isn’t “resting easy” exactly what you did?
And I didn’t see anything in the post that indicated you did any research to understand the deeper issues with 911 funding.
In the KRON-4 news video at the end there was your answer: 10 dispatchers for 9 bay area counties. So do the math:
30sec / call / dispatcher i.e. 2 calls per minute ( no bathroom breaks ) = 10 * 24 * 60 * 2 = 28800 calls / day.
6,897,883 (2007 census estimate).
Therefore
only 0.41% of the bay area population better have an emergency (not to exceed 30seconds long to state the emergency)
AND
the emergencies better be evenly distributed throughout the entire 24 hours.
Does this mean you will now favor increasing Amazon’s taxes?
Or do you think 30secs / call and even distribution per call is reasonable?
I believe the fee option fee option is a good one if an adult calls 911. Repeated offenders should be prosecuted.
I actually do think you can get a fine for Misuse of Emergency Systems.
Absolutely.
Several hundred people in the U.S. dialed 911 to report their televisions weren’t working after the much-delayed, much-ballyhooed, you’d-have-to-live-under-a-rock-not-to-know-what-to-do, U.S. conversion to digital television.
A fine, public shaming and prosecution for repeated offense.
- Bill
Assuming these stories aren’t about the same event it’s hardly an isolated event. There is a forum post here: http://forums.a...MVIEWTMP=Linear about 911 calls not working on an iPhone.
on a slightly different topic, wow it must be a weird job to take these calls. I wonder if the suicide and/or alcoholism rate among 911 operators is significantly higher than the normal population.
You have to be extremely good at multi-tasking, staying clam, and intelligent.
Michael, this is considered a high stress job and you can expect as you suggest that alcoholism is at least as prevelant as any other stress inducing job in society.
Here is an article I pulled off a simple Google search http://www.head...onstressors.htm
Before I worked as a firefighter i worked county probation (in a county in the Silicon Valley area) and nearly everyone I know in the juvenile division (back in the 80’s) was either an alcoholic or on uppers, downers, pot heads or all the above.
In the fire service I never met a drug user. A beer or two after a tough shift is always welcomed.
Michael, this is considered a high stress job and you can expect as you suggest that alcoholism is at least as prevelant as any other stress inducing job in society.
Before I worked as a firefighter i worked county probation (in a county in the Silicon Valley area) and nearly everyone I know in the juvenile division (back in the 80’s) was either an alcoholic or on uppers, downers, pot heads or all the above.
In the fire service I never met a drug user. A beer or two after a tough shift is always welcomed.
Yes, Mike it is my Cousin was one..he got our before resorting to drugs or etc..
You think this only happens in California? I am a firefighter and I know that it happens a lot more. And to those of you that think the problem is that people don’t really care because they are going to get paid anyway think again because there are still more volunteer firefighters than there are career and those people do what they do because they want to help — the problem comes into play with politics and things that keep those people from helping. It’s a really sad state of affairs but it seems that the general american public is more concerned about the nuisance of flashing red lights than the fact that the people in that vehicle with flashing red lights could well be the person saving someone’s life….. sadly that doesn’t matter to anyone until it’s their life that needs saving.
Bob said it all. We don’t mind paying ball players absurd salaries before they even show up for work, by endorsing higher ticket prices, by paying for it. But, we can’t find a way to pay EMT and Police officers a decent salary.
We get what we deserve. We all want to be entertained and would not mind paying big bucks for it. But by the same token we expect life saving emergency technicians to play a role of a buzzer beater like we expect of that super star athlete.
Until this convoluted society puts up its priorities in order, we will always find someone dying on the street less important than someone getting a massive contract for the next season for scoring their team a championship.
Move to Seattle. We have excellent 9-1-1 up here in King County.
I was going to say something along the same lines. I’ve had to call 911 on a couple occasions (e.g. I drove past a car on the shoulder of a freeway on fire a few years back), but I’ve never had an issue getting through.
In fact, in the car fire case, the dispatcher informed me that they’d already had several other people alert them to the situation.
I very recently published a post about this topic, and made a suggestion:
As soon as my call connects to the emergency hotline, I should hear three words:
“What’s your emergency?”
Until the caller can be connected to a live human, the call will be recorded and analyzed – both based on sound and on semantics – to estimate the priority level of the call. If loud noises or the sounds of screaming or certain trigger words are recognized, then the priority level is increased.
These changes wouldn’t just help people in emergencies, but also observers who would like a quick, efficient way to do their civic duty.
The rest of the post is here: http://bit.ly/15b05J
I’m a 911 dispatcher and this idea is horrible.
In my career so far, the most hysterical, inconsolable caller I’ve had was calling about a confused looking otter. Should she get priority over the woman hiding in her closet from a home invasion or abuser?
In these cases we have them communicate using the key pad. press 1 for police, 2 for ambulance, 3 for fire, and 4 and 5 for yes and no questions.
If your idea were put into place we’d see a proliferation of people screaming “FUCK SHIT FIRE RAPE” to get a higher priority on the phone so they could more quickly expound on a completely non emergency issue.
… oh and while I’m at it, it’s definitely a good idea to have your local PD numbers, but ALWAYS call 911 in an emergency. If the caller can’t speak, or has only mere seconds to state their emergency, the 911 system is the one that is equipped to best track the location of the caller, not a regular landline.
oh and your idea would also pose issues with the HOH/TTY community, and would also put people who have speach problems, language barriers, and, say, limited speech due to breathing obstructions at a grave disadvantage.
The problem you described most likely lies with the telecommunication carrier or the individual 911 center.
I can tell you from first hand experience that first responders, firefighters, paramedics, cops or State Troopers never lag and always rush to a scene, especially a scene with fire or injury.
There is no universal 911 service. Every department and jurisdiction is a bit different.
911call center personnel are (generally) not trained firefighters or first responders, they are trained to route calls to department dispatchers.
Depending on the individual 911 call center they may act as dispatchers as well. If this is the case they stay with the incident until it is cleared and their resources are no longer needed on scene.
That said your parents experience is not completely uncommon. The county they live in should address this particular situation.
Well you forgot to mention how slow Washington D.C. firefighters are at responding to medical calls.
http://www.usat...ems-day1-dc.htm
“And given how upset we get over homepage redesigns and SMS fees, why not exhibit a bit of outrage when technology fails us in a matter of life or death?”
I think you’ve answered your question right there. Things such as personal communication effect everyone in their day to day life, whereas a 911 call may effect a person maybe once or not at all in their life. The infrastructure of safety and security isn’t seen as an immediate need. Hence, policy makers will continue to focus on the more selfish needs of the many.
God, I’m bitter today.
True, you’d think with all that ‘war on terrorism’ money that maybe they could have modernized 911. What’s wrong with text based, twitter like 911 if the call doesn’t go through. Or an IM like system that has the location that you sent. Nothing worse than not being able to get a message through. No one solution will work it needs to have multiple ways to contact. We shouldn’t just be using the phone, it is very prone to bottlenecks in any system.
The phone is very important because the public is not trained to be calm and gather the essential information. Many people don’t even know where they are when they dial 9-1-1. In the Seattle area we do have geo-location technology in place but a 9-1-1 call taker may only see what cell tower is handling the call. There are a number of questions a call-taker may need to ask and get answered quickly such as what direction is a shooter running in, and description of a suspect. A call-taker may need to get a caller out of harms way, give instructions for CPR, etc.
One of the nice things about the system in Seattle is that the call is directed to the nearest call center. There are still problems. I might call 9-1-1 and get Seattle Police when I actually need South King County 9-1-1 because I’m just outside the city limits. Fire and medical calls have to be transferred from the primary call-taker (Police department) to the Fire department.
True, the phone is greatly important to the system. But there should be another way to contact and ensure a message got through because phone systems have huge bottlenecks. I do believe the phone, positioning, tracking are the main tools but there has to be a better way to help standardize things a bit and allow multiple ways to contact. Otherwise you have a big single point of failure.
this is techcrunch. shouldn’t you propose to replace 911 with twitter?
Gun control huh?
I m not so sure you “generally cover tech here at TechCrunch”. Better say “generally cover what’s hip on TV lately”
In LA, 20 minutes is good. Not good, scary, but a sad fact.
911 agencies should enlist volunteers to handle the extra calls. It is sad we spend trillions for war but don’t have enough for the basic needs in the country.
Twit twit twitter…
Interestingly lots of people want great public services but are often unwilling to pay a little more in their taxes for them. Sure, your cash could probably be used a little more efficiently, but occasionally it just comes down to digging a little deeper and paying for the service. Those people on the end of the line, the ones who turn up and everyone in between need a living wage, same as you.
There was a long-running coronial inquest here in Australia about this kid, David Iredale, who got into trouble while hiking in the Blue Mountains bushland west of Sydney. He had managed to get a mobile phone signal, and put a triple-0 (australian 9-1-1) call through several times, and even though in obvious distress, the operators were obsessed with getting a street location off him. He kept repeating he was lost in the bush and the operator would ask “what is your street” or somesuch and where sarcastic to him and finally threatened him for wasting the emergency services’ time. He died from dehydration only a few kilometres from civilisation (although if you know the Blue Mountains well, you’ll also know this statement is actually meaningless, as its very rugged).
“The coroner said today that the call takers should have been aware that, if there was no street address available, they could have overridden the system.
He said the triple-0 operators had a “relentless focus” on obtaining a street address from David when it was clear he was in the bush.”
http://www.bris...90507-aw1a.html
Weren’t they trained? You’d think that would be a common training scenario. Institutional fail at the management level.
that’s horrible
Some mobile phones have a tendency to make this problem even worse. I own a Blackberry Pearl. The phone has problems in general with “pocket dialing” numbers and accidental unlocking, but with 911, the situation is even worse. While the phone is “locked”, some bright designer thought it would be a good idea to allow emergency calls. Press any button and a menu pops up with 2 options, one of which is “Emergency Call”. Selecting that option results in a confirmation prompt — Again, 50/50 odds. So, a long sequence of button mashes inside one’s pocket can easily result in an inadvertent 911 call. I’ve personally had this happen 3 times so far. Typically, I only realize it when the 911 dispatcher calls back, causing my phone to ring.
““Why is it that I can pull out my cell phone and call France or browse the Internet whenever I want, but I got a busy signal for 9-1-1 for 20 minutes?” I wish I had an answer for him.”
Because governments are focusing their (stolen) resources on a vast array of projects that they have no business doing while completely neglecting the only legitimate reason they have to exist.
And those projects are…..?
Calling 411 and getting the police department closest might also yield another possibility? There should be multiple places to be able to call for help.
Calling 911 from a cell phone is different than calling from a land line.
Cell phone 911 takes you to the CHP (California Highway Patrol)
AMEN! I’ve had to dial 911 in WA state, and have had calls “abandoned” too. I shudder to think what the statistics are for different states. Simply put, having 911 fail is unacceptable!
The problem is the way that bodies that govern 911 agencies allocate where and how the 911 tax monies are spent and their ability to hold telecommunication companies feet to the fire.
I’ve sat on 911 boards at different times. When cell phones first came on the scene there was a problem that 911 calls from rural areas would be sent to the nearest metro area. To get the cell and land line companies to correct this problem lead to threatening to pull their franchise from the areas where the problems occurred. All sides blamed infrastructure as the problem, but once they both faced losing a large region the problem was corrected.
The best way to get action is to check you cell and/or wired phone provider bill and see if a tax is accessed on the bill (there is and in some states it can be as high as $2.85 a month) and ask a customer service rep for the company where the tax is going. Once you find where your tax is going make contact with the agency’s governing body with a written complaint of concern and send copy to the FCC telecommunication division. When the board is put on notice of citizen complaint they are going to take action for fear of having their income (the 911 tax) withheld until the complaint is addressed and corrected.
I think they should have a chat like facility … or something related to internet in addition to phone…
Two frightening facts:
1.) I work for AT&T and do you want to know our most common outage or network issue? 911 dialing from your mobile. At least twice a week on our network outage dashboard a state or region of the country is having 911 issues. And in giant bold text is “DO NOT COMMUNICATE THIS WITH CUSTOMERS”.
2.) 911 operators are paid about 10-11 dollars an hour; on par with your average customer service employee. This can vary by area I would assume, but that was the going rate for Temple, Texas, which is small city. Maybe I’m wrong, but considering the importance of that job that should be higher to attract better potential employees.
Scary…
Starting salary here in King County is $18.00. Plus a shift differential of 20% makes an annual salary of $40,000. Sucks to work as a dispatcher in Texass, I guess.
1) Funny you mention the 911 problems from AT&T, as I mentioned in an earlier post, I am a 911 dispatcher for the 2nd largest municipality in the U.S. and by far the most difficult 911 calls to hear are those received from AT&T customers. I don’t know what causes the problem, but the call constantly cuts in and out. It’s gotten so bad, that most of us just tell the person that if they can hear us, we will call them right back. When we do so, the call is crystal clear… go figure.
2) I have also noticed that a lot of smaller cities don’t pay their dispatchers nearly enough. That is not the problem here though, I made a tad over $90,000 last year. That is with a 40-hr work week, and no overtime except for the paid holidays.
Why not call someone and ask them to call 911 for you? Or can’t they route the call then?
What really needs to happen is the Government needs to work with Google to develop a text messaging system where you can send a text message to 911. The operator can review it and approve it if its a real emergency. The text info will be read by a computer to the local officers. I know Google has the capabilities to process a location and categorize types of emergencies to route to the correct emergency team. For example
“robbery 1245 main st, california”
will automatically tell the closest police officer after the operator approves the message. Fake calls will have a $200 fine for obstructing justice.
Pay up or shut up.
Building upon what Kyle has said, there was a strange case in ABQ couple years ago. Due to a combination of jurisdiction disputes and budget limitations, on the evening TV news, we saw it reported:
A woman called 911 and received the response, “Sorry, wrong number.”
Same thing happened to me in San Francisco. A fight got out of hand in my neighborhood and a kid went down pretty hard our in the middle of the street. I called 9-1-1 three times in a row and all I got was a busy signal. Finally my fiance called the police # programmed into her phone and got in touch with someone right away.
Moral of the story to all: Look up your local police and fire #s and program them into your phone. Trust me… it will come in handy!
On a side note, can’t/shouldn’t they automatically route my call to the local police if the 9-1-1 operators are busy? I thought that was one of the reasons we have mandatory GPS chips in our phone.
Goog point, Brian. I’ve had direct numbers programmed them into my phone for cities I spend time in for many years now.
Another thing I’d like to see is a way to test 911. So an alternate number that when you dial it does not disturb personnel but simply tells you what information will be available to 911 when you call them. For example, are they actually getting a location for you when you call? Is your call going directly to local authorities or going to CHP?
Also, it seems like 911 should be able to take such data from your phone when the network can’t provide it.