So much for 911 . . . .

[Sapphire Silk]

This happened today on my way to work. I live in a small suburb community in the very small town where the community college where I teach is located. There's a back road I take to get to work that lets me avoid driving through downtown./bg

So, I make a left off one back road onto another back road that takes me to work this afternoon. Speed limit on most of the road is 45 MPH, with a drop to 30 MPH near the middle school (which is not directly on the road, or it would be 20 MPH). I find myself behind a white Chevy pickup as I'm approaching the middle school, and quickly note he is swerving all over the road, and driving about 60 MPH (which is fast, most speeders keep it down to about 50).

Next we come up to a red light. Turn right, head out to the Interstate. Left, the community college.

Dipwad nearly runs the red light; stops about a quarter way into the intersection. At this point I'm close enough to get his plate and am dialing 911 as I'm pretty sure he's drunk at this point. Light turns green, and we both turn left.

As we pull a few hundred feet down the road to a second light I'm on the line with county 911 and start telling them about the drunk driver. Unfortunately, I'm going straight onto campus, and he's turning left, heading into downtown. County 911 tells me they're transferring me to the Highway Patrol.

The line rings and rings and rings. Dipwad is long gone by the time the HWP picks up.

I give them the description, but the HWP seldom sends cars into downtown. It's usually patrolled by the Sheriff's Department.

So I'm wondering why the fuck I even bothers, since I'm pretty sure Dipwad got away cold.

[Pixilated]

Yeah, but keep in mind that the reason he got away was not because you couldn't be bothered to report him. You did what you could.

[blas]

Thankfully, I've only had to dial 911 a couple of times. But the one time.....it connected me to a dispatcher more than 50 miles north of where I was!!!!!

There was also a friend of a friend who witnessed a huge accident on the highway coming back from Wisconsin Dells, and he called 911 from his car, and he got a dispatcher on the other side of Wisconsin!!!

[Sapphire Silk]

Yeah, that happened to me once. I was driving back to Greensboro from the Outer Banks and had this asshole tailgating me at 75+ MPH (I was speeding and in the fast lane, he wanted to go MUCH faster).

Problem was, there was a van matching my speed in the right hand lane. If I sped up, he sped up. If I slowed down, he slowed down. It created a rolling road block, and it wasn't my fault.

Jerkwad in the black SUV could be seen screaming at me to get out of his way, gesturing wildly for me to pull into the right lane.

Which I couldn't because of the van! Normally, in a situation like that I'd slow down and drop behind the van, but I couldn't because Jerkwad was literally a hair's breath from my rear bumper.

I've never been so scared in my life. When I tried to slow down, he sped up and tried to run me off the road. He finally did get around the van (who pulled off the highway), and then cut me off switching into my lane.

I call 911, and get the dispatcher in another county about an hour's drive down the road. We got very frustrated because I couldn't make her understand where I was.

911 is useless in my state.

[LillFilly]

I have had SUCH frustration with some dispatchers when I try to get police to where I work. The good ones take the most basic information they need to dispatch the officer, then collect the details from you AFTER officers are on their way. Then, there are the ones who insist on playing 20 questions for 5 minutes while you're desperately trying to get them to understand you need an officer NOW! Even the officers agree dispatch sucks, because many times they've been given the wrong info. Red becomes green, left is right and send an ambulance becomes don't send one.

[Andara Bledin]

It's not really 911's fault about not really knowing where you are when calling from a mobile device. Due to the nature of mobile routing, they won't necessarily have a reliable location for the call until you give it to them, so it's important when calling that you are able to give clear and accurate information.

The FCC page on Wireless 911 services

Thankfully, the only times I've had to call while in the car, it's taken me directly to the CHP.

^-.-^

[TheCheerfulTreeRat]

It's not really 911's fault about not really knowing where you are when calling from a mobile device. Due to the nature of mobile routing, they won't necessarily have a reliable location for the call until you give it to them, so it's important when calling that you are able to give clear and accurate information.

A Paramedic (here in the UK) told me it's always better to ring from a landline - the way it works here is you ring 999 (our version of 911) and are asked which service (police, fire, ambulance, coast guard) and once you have selected the service, they're notified, your location having been derived from the CLID, while you're still giving your details to the operator. No location available from a mobile phone. Yet.

[pitmonkey]

Here 911 is enhanced, if you have the GPS turned on the 911 has a better chance of routing you through the correct state police dispatch. Then they put you through to the local dispatch.
Panacea, you did the right thing calling. He may have not got caught this time but now he is on their radar.

[LillFilly]

A Paramedic (here in the UK) told me it's always better to ring from a landline

The hotel I used to work at had a medical emergency and called 911, but was disconnected. 911 called back and the front desk answered "thank you for calling Hotel X. on Main Street" The front desk requested an ambulance, and when 911 confirmed the address they kept INSISTING that we were Hotel Y on Park Ave. Front desk corrected them, but after 10 min of no ambulance and calling back, found the dispatcher had sent the ambulance to Hotel Y anyway, since THAT'S what the address was in their computer! A talk with the fire/ambulance Chief corrected that problem after, and the guest didn't suffer from the extended wait.

[Sapphire Silk]

What's bugging me is how because it was a drunk driving call they had to rout me to the highway patrol.

As I said in my OP, the highway patrol is rarely downtown. They're usually on the back roads or on the Interstate where they can catch the speeders.

The Sheriff's office is downtown all the time because College Town has no police force.

If there is a suspected drunk driver on the road, wouldn't you want all cops in the area notified, regardless of department?

[dalesys]

wouldn't you want all cops in the area notified, regardless of department?

But we can't infringe on the dominion of the tiniest donut cop shop, for they have the mightiest wrath!

[pitchpole]

I have a friend who works in emergency services in my area. I've been told to find the local emergency numbers and program them into my phone, because that way I always will reach the right dispatch. (Unfortunately I don't know how to actually do this - she gave me the local one. However, I suspect if you call the non-emergency/business line, they will likely tell you, especially if you explain why you're asking).

All of which reminds me I need to find the one near work.

[Chromatix]

The location of a mobile phone can usually be determined approximately by triangulation - that is, by looking at the signal strength and line-of-sight delay from several nearby towers simultaneously. This works regardless of whether the phone is GPS equipped - indeed, very often my iPhone can't get a GPS fix, but still gets a workable triangulation fix very quickly. It isn't very precise, but when you're dealing with a fast-moving vehicle, an imprecise fix plus the name of the highway is good enough.

If only one tower is available, triangulation supplies only the location of that tower. For a GSM service, that could be several miles away, but should still be in the same police district (or at worst the next one over). So fail on the phone company for routing the call wrongly.

[EricKei]

pitch - I was tempted to try that once. The few times I called the police station directly, I was told to hang up and dial 911 anyway, even for non-emergency calls. They use it as a Parish (county)-wide routing for ALL police calls, even Animal Control...In a Parish that's "tall" enough that going all the way from the north end to the south takes a good 2 hours at highway speeds x.x