Safe Speed Forums

So GMP have gone public with what we all are encountering

Look .. if you cannot get throught to the final of "strictly come dancing" .. or you got the wrong topping on a takeaway pizza or if you are a priest in need of a pee at the local store who will not let a cassock be raised


NOT our problem! Our 999 system relates to dire emergency and can be the life or death matter in real terms.

If you have personal/emotional problem .. contact the Samaritans.

If you are ill or have set the house on fire .. ask for the correct service and police will turn up a back-up


If you have some other crime to report to us - use the Crime Stopper or station numbers and we appreciate the information and will act on the intelligence as supplied to us.

But 999? PLEASE .. The number is EMERGENCY URGENT and whilst our operators can field the nuisances - it also means a delay in response to a REAL urgent emergency.


I know none on this board behave so.

I post in case those so inclined hit on the forum and will advise such persons via this board that abuse of 999 is a criminal act.

I cannot believe how daft some folk are. You cannot make such things up


To the regulars whom I respect .. what would you suggest our society does with these fools? Keep it clean

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Take with a chuckle or a grain of salt
Drive without COAST and it's all your own fault!

A SMILE is a curve that sets everything straight (P Diller).

A Smiley Per post
FINES USfor our COAST!

Approach love and cooking with reckless abandon - but driving with a smile and a COAST calm mind.

The problem is that there is no memorable equivalent of 999 for urgent but non emergency numbers.

For example earlier this year whilst cycling I passed an isolated big house with the burglar alarm going off. Almost certainly a false alarm but a finite possibility that some poor beggar was lying on the floor having been beaten about the head. And the same possibility that the villains were still there so i didn't fancy investigating personally.

Who to contact? As it happened I had the number of Macclesfield police station on my mobile and they sent a car to find it was indeed a false alarm. Bbut they agreed I had done the right thing in calling them. How much easier if I could have called, say, 333 to be connected to the duty officer at the nearest manned police station

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When I see an adult on a bicycle, I do not despair for the future of the human race. H.G. Wells
When I see a youth in a motor car I do d.c.brown

Yeah, it's no joke fellows. There are people out there who call 999 because they've got soap in their eyes!

Yeah, that would be useful. Actually, it has been started, sort of.
http://www.101.gov.uk/
Apparently it is too good an idea. Only works in 4 areas and the home office stopped funding it. And it costs 10p per call.

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Andrew.

It might work, but there are some things to iron out.

If there were an 888 number, then it would need to be manned and operated similarly to the 999 number. Who would pay? And what level of response would it deliver? What if a non emergency (a bad headache) becomes an emergency (a stroke)? How would things be elevated between 888 and 999? And what if an emergency is downgraded to an non-emergency and it turns out to be an emergency after all etc. How could be public know the difference between 888 and 999, and why shouldn't they play it safe by always calling 999 and let the operator decide?

I was thinking of a number which simply connected you to the nearest manned police station. It certainly wouldn't be appropriate for medical emergencies which always require proper triage, nor for the fire service . But once you were in touch with the police station they could make the decision to escalate it. As for paying - aye, there's the rub.

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When I see an adult on a bicycle, I do not despair for the future of the human race. H.G. Wells
When I see a youth in a motor car I do d.c.brown

666 should do.

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Malcolm W.
The views expressed in this post are personal opinions and do not represent the views of Safespeed.

According to the information on the 101 web site, and what I know of NHS Direct, there is already a procedure for escalating calls to 999.

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Andrew.

£1.50/minute no doubt.
Welcome to local police force - forcing money out of you since longer than I can remember. If you are a victim of crime, press 1. If you are a criminal, press 2. If you want to become a victim of crime, press 3. For business hours, press 4. To use our "inform on your neighbour" service, press 5. To solve a crime, press 6, please have your credit card ready. To hear these options again, press *. (To hack our mailbox, press #.)

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Andrew.

What's the point in that? it needs to be national or just don't bother.

It's really not that hard to set up on todays telephone network either, nor is it anything new. I used to know an 0800 number that you could ring from anywhere in the country and would put you through to a nearby local taxi firm. The taxi firms paid a referral fee to the operators of the number, worked bloody well.

Only reason it'd be harder to set up for the police is, well, have you tried to find a manned police station after 5pm or on a Sunday afternoon, the choice of which geographic number to route your call to will require somewhat more complicated rules and they'll probably need to change constantly. Plus there'll need to be a fallback number in case no-one answers.

Personally I'd be happy if they just shoved all the PCSOs into regional call centres, your call reached them and then the PCSOs get the job of having to locate an actual useful copper who is currently on desk duty.

Edit: Only danger with that scheme is once it's worked for a year, Gordon Brown will probably outsource it to India.