403-266-1234. Used to be plastered on the sides of every car they had, before they made the switch to the predominantly-black-with-minimal-markings look...
As I've mentioned before, the main reason they took it off is that when they were testing new looks, 80% of the respondents couldn't figure out what a phone number that wasn't 911 would be doing on a police car, so CPS decided to save themselves the money that putting a 'confusing' phone number was costing them.
I accidentally dialed 911 by hitting the power button on my phone five times the other night. I somehow realized someone was on the other end of the line and asking if I was ok. Not to self - volume buttons are on the left, power button is on the right.
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I accidentally dialed 911 by hitting the power button on my phone five times the other night. I somehow realized someone was on the other end of the line and asking if I was ok. Not to self - volume buttons are on the left, power button is on the right.
This happened to me while driving. My phone was in the cup holder and when it a bounce it pressed button. Freaked me right out. I disabled the feature in settings to avoid it again.
As I've mentioned before, the main reason they took it off is that when they were testing new looks, 80% of the respondents couldn't figure out what a phone number that wasn't 911 would be doing on a police car, so CPS decided to save themselves the money that putting a 'confusing' phone number was costing them.
I'd love to know the research on that. Personally I thought having the Non-Emergency number plastered on Police cars was brilliant.
Police, Fire, Medical Non-Emergency options is contact and use information we should be striving to promote in any and all manners possible. I know I've used the non-emergency line frequently.
Is there a way to patch calls from 911 to the Non-Emergency lines? So that people can be directed immediately to more appropriate resources?
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Is there a way to patch calls from 911 to the Non-Emergency lines? So that people can be directed immediately to more appropriate resources?
I assume there's a liability associated with this, and they'd rather just respond to 911 calls as such without having the dispatcher make that decision, but I could be way off.
I remember asking one of the CPS guys on twitter about that when they made the change and he said basically what white tiger said. Also added that with Google and the internet everyone has access to that information now anyway and that they'd had cases where people were calling non emergency # with emergencies and delaying responses
I'd love to know the research on that. Personally I thought having the Non-Emergency number plastered on Police cars was brilliant.
So did I. I don't have any access to the research, just the word of someone who was on the committee for the re-design. Though, my own experience shows true with this. Every time someone calls 911 for a non-emergency matter, they are supposed to be educated on and given the non-emergency number, and told to call back using it. The answers I've had to explaining that to people are pretty eye opening. Most just don't think of it. As I've said, "911" has become "the way to contact police" in public consciousness, so many don't even stop to think that there is a way to contact police if you have a non-emergency question. That I find is the bigger problem. Because if someone stops for a minute and says to themselves "There has to be a way to call police that isn't just 911" and googles that...the way to contact their local PD will almost always show up as the top hit, and be presented even on the google page. They don't even have to click anything, just read the number off the google page. But folks have stopped thinking of 911 as an 'emergency number' and are transitioning (unfortunately) to 'contact an emergency service number'.
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Police, Fire, Medical Non-Emergency options is contact and use information we should be striving to promote in any and all manners possible. I know I've used the non-emergency line frequently.
I fully agree. Police aren't the only dept that have trouble with folks calling 911 for non-emerg services as well. Fire and EMS see a lot of it, too. Though their non-emerg numbers are even harder to find. Did you know that the Calgary Fire Dept has a non-emerg number? Try and find it. It's nearly impossible. I can only remember the last four digits of it (1022). I did some googling, looks like these days they tell you to call 311 for non-emergency fire calls.
I am in full agreement that there needs to be a lot more promotion around non-emergency contact numbers for emergency services of all types. That would free up a lot of 911 resources. Some places are doing music/youtube videos about it, and some are really good. I always get a chuckle out of this New Zealand one.
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Is there a way to patch calls from 911 to the Non-Emergency lines? So that people can be directed immediately to more appropriate resources?
Technically, yes. But we're not allowed to. Sadly, in addition to folks calling on 911 for non-emerg matters, we've also been told by our higher ups/stakeholders that if someone calls 911 for any matter, that matter will be dealt with then and there.
This has led to folks realizing this and using 911 to jump the queue in non-emerg. I've flat out had people tell me "Well, I waited 5 minutes on hold with non-emergency, and didn't feel like waiting anymore, so I just called 911 to get through faster." It's...honestly...infuriating. And policy won't let me hang up on them but actually forces me to reward their ****y behavior with service. That doesn't change the priority of the call I put in, but it can mean I'm dealing with someone's 5 day old non-emergency issue instead of someone bleeding out on the street.
I'm all for frequent promotion of the local non-emerg line.
Last edited by WhiteTiger; 07-15-2019 at 04:47 PM.
Do you have any idea how many accidental 911 calls happen on a daily basis?
Last year, one of the things I did was look up all my calls for the year by category, since I was curious. Here's the number I dealt with, from mid-Dec in 2017 to mid-Dec 2018:
17 - 911 open line/business
1 - 911 open line/payphone
23 - 911 open line/residential
1 - 911 VOIP
~
Those are the 7 categories that a '911 misdial' is going to fall into. So that's one ECO, for 1 year. And they are a call type that I don't get a lot of, it seems. I note that, because it seems like some ECO's are magnets for a certain type of call. 911 hangup/misdial's don't seem to be mine, so those numbers would likely be echoed across for an 'average' ECO.
In looking that over, I see that I'm missing '911 hangup/business' and '911 open line/cell' from them. Not sure what happened to those two, but they aren't in the numbers I have from that year (I probably miscounted them somewhere)
Last edited by WhiteTiger; 07-15-2019 at 12:47 PM.
Did you know that the Calgary Fire Dept has a non-emerg number? Try and find it. It's nearly impossible. I can only remember the last for digits of it (1022).
It is very hard to find! I tried to call it once when I came across a small fire in a park that some kids put out. The fire was out when I got there but they started telling me about some guy who had set it, so I thought it might be a good idea to check in with the fire department. In the end, I ended up calling the police non-emergency number, because that was all I could find, and they transferred me. Then a few minute later, a fire truck showed up with lights and sirens blaring, even though I told them there was no fire anymore.
It is very hard to find! I tried to call it once when I came across a small fire in a park that some kids put out. The fire was out when I got there but they started telling me about some guy who had set it, so I thought it might be a good idea to check in with the fire department. In the end, I ended up calling the police non-emergency number, because that was all I could find, and they transferred me. Then a few minute later, a fire truck showed up with lights and sirens blaring, even though I told them there was no fire anymore.
I'm pretty sure it's 264-1022....
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As I've mentioned before, the main reason they took it off is that when they were testing new looks, 80% of the respondents couldn't figure out what a phone number that wasn't 911 would be doing on a police car, so CPS decided to save themselves the money that putting a 'confusing' phone number was costing them.
I don't doubt that's what you were told the reasoning was, but it still beggars belief that 80% of people surveyed are so... bafflingly stupid. To your following point:
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Originally Posted by WhiteTiger
Police aren't the only dept that have trouble with folks calling 911 for non-emerg services as well. Fire and EMS see a lot of it, too. Though their non-emerg numbers are even harder to find. Did you know that the Calgary Fire Dept has a non-emerg number? Try and find it.
I have absolutely no idea what the fire dept. and EMS's non-emergency numbers are (although I'm hard-pressed to think of any reason I'd ever call for either of those services unless it was an emergency), largely because they never advertised them in any way whatsoever. Whereas the only reason I know the police non-emergency number is because it was on the side of every single vehicle they had!
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Do you have any idea how many accidental 911 calls happen on a daily basis?
I hadn't forgotten about this, but needed to get back to work (and find the time to check, as it's not an easy/fast process).
I checked how many 911 hangups were classified from a business for the entire year from July 20/2018 to July 20/2019
The final tally was about 5340.
So that would be almost 15 a day, every day, all year, just from businesses. I didn't have the time/don't have the stamina to check the entire call type for the year.
Last edited by WhiteTiger; 07-21-2019 at 06:41 AM.
It's actually 911-1022. The 911 part gets you to the emergency switchboard but then if you dial 1022 you get the non-emergency line instead. You just have to pause for a second before putting in the 1022, like an extension.
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It's actually 911-1022. The 911 part gets you to the emergency switchboard but then if you dial 1022 you get the non-emergency line instead. You just have to pause for a second before putting in the 1022, like an extension.
Interesting. Still wasn't easy to find this info when I was looking for it. Now I know if I ever come across another non-emergency fire-related incident!
White tiger, I just wanted to say because of your education when my son and I accidentally pocket dialled 911 on my cell phone rather than hang up right away I stayed on the line to tell them it was a misdial.
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