Wednesday, Jan. 20, 2010

Raleigh dials 911 on 911

We Raleighites have a lot of emergencies. At least we think so.

The Raleigh-Wake 911 Emergency Communications Center dispatched a record 444,160 phone calls last year.

Up to 10 percent were hang-ups and junk calls that should never occur. If you call 911 by mistake, you should stay on the line and explain what happened.

If you don't, then the 911 center will call you back to see if there's an emergency. If you don't answer, they send a police car or fire truck. All of this is a waste of time, effort, and limited resources.

A more exasperating category is those tens of thousands of needless calls a year from people who aren't reporting an emergency but want information they should get elsewhere, said Barry Furey, director of the 911 Center.

You won't believe what some people call for: directions, phone numbers, school closings, road conditions, power outages, washing machine repairs, even winning lottery numbers. All of which you can get by using your computer or calling the appropriate office - which isn't 911.

"To some people, 911 is the same as 411 information," Furey said. "Anything you can think of, people will ask. These calls slow us down from getting to people who really need help."

Maybe we should bill people for making frivolous 911 calls. Put the financial burden on them, and I bet they'll stop.

There's another, trickier category: non-emergency police calls. That's when you think you need the police or firefighters, but no one's life or safety is in immediate danger.

In that case, you're supposed to call the 911 center at the seven-digit number 996-3530, or Raleigh police at 996-3335. But who's going to remember that? Or do it?

Suppose you're driving at rush your and you see that some lunkhead has parked his car in a no-parking zone. Will you be inclined to dial a seven-digit number instead of 911? Should you while driving?

There's a good alternative Raleigh and Wake should consider: Some communities reserve the phone number 311 for city government questions and non-emergency police matters. Then the call gets routed to the right place, in roughly the right priority.

Raleigh could look into that anew, Furey said.

If you think that's a good idea, call or write your City Council members and tell them so. Just don't call 911.