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Is 911 a true lifesaver or will you dial 911 and die!Apr 23 '10 (Updated Jul 20 '11) Write an essay on this topic.
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The Bottom Line The US 911's system has saved millions of people's lives and is generally very effective, however, the system isn't perfect and has its limitiations.
The 911 emergency system in place in the majority of the United States, is generally regarded to be a highly effective method of quickly reaching emergency services (police, medical, and fire). Most of the time for high priority emergencies, assistance is usually only 3-7 minutes away. Throughout, the past 50 years the US's 911 system has been credited with saving millions of lives. For instance, a little boy in Florida was able to dial 911 to save himself and his family from violent and heavily armed robbers, as the robbers ran away after seeing the boy had dialed 911 and multiple deputy sheriffs arrived on scene within 3 minutes. However, the 911 system isn't perfect, many times operators have mis-entered information, thus, making an emergency, which should receive a high priority response, actually gets a low priority response. We have all heard horror stories, like a woman in Pittsburgh who dialed 911 multiple times during a blizzard when her husband was having severe chest and stomach pains. Twice ambulances arrived within 7 minutes outside her neighborhood, but were unable to enter her neighborhood as it had 3 feet of snow. Each time paramedics refused to walk to help her and insisted that she would need to bring her husband to them. When her husband finally stopped breathing two days later she called 911 again, this time a fire-truck with paramedics arrived within 3 minutes, but it was too late. (Pittsburgh officials later fired both ambulance companies over the incident.) In addition, many people have reported waiting over 30 minutes for a police officer to respond to a home burglary or after a mugging on the street, even when they dialed 911. So how effective is America's 911 system, will it save your life or will it end up killing you? Well, this review is an in-depth analysis of how 911 works, what 911 considers as an emergency, and the limitations of the system. The reason for this review is in response to several studies on 911 and is in response to the book Dial 911 and Die by Richard W. Stevens and Garn Turner. History of 911: In the early 1900s, most phone calls were operated assisted, so if people needed police or medical assistance, they would simply tell the operator and the operator would connect them. As telephone technology improved, reducing the direct need for operators, it dramatically lowered the quality of emergency assistance. People would now have to remember three 7-digit numbers. Not hard to do when you're calm, but when your stressed in an emergency; remembering three separate numbers can be a daunting task. In the UK, the 999 system for immediate response from emergency services was put in place in 1937. America followed in 1958 with a 911 system for police, medical, and fire assistance. The origins of the 911 number are debatable, the US 911 was obviously a copy of England's and Winnipeg, Canada's 999 systems. It's widely believed that because Americans were familiar with numbers like 411 (directory assistance) and 611 (repair assistance) that AT&T decided to make the universal emergency number as 911. Canada and the US decided to make 911 the official emergency number throughout both countries by 1968. One of the major problems with the 911 system in early days, was that people in dire need of assistance often couldn't communicate their location. Thus, in 1989 many PSAPs (Public safety answering points) rolled out something known as E911 (Ehnanced 911), which provided ALI (Automatic Location Info.) and CAD (Computer Aided Dispatch). These technologies allowed emergency dispatchers to see location information and what emergency vehicles were near the scene when a 911 call was recieved. The E911 system has now been expanded to cell phones (using triangulation, 911 operators now know your location within 30-1000 feet and phone companies must provide your exact location to dispatchers within 6 minutes of the emergency call) and many large VoIP companies (Comcast uses a true E911 system, Vonage is still working on providing E911 for all users all the time). How 911 works: When Dialing from a landline: Phone companies maintain extensive local records of all customer's addresses. The E911 system taps into this reserve to provide life-saving assistance, if a caller can't speak. When a person enters the digits 911 into their phone, regardless, of what digits are all dialed afterwards, it sends a high-priority signal to a Competitive Local Exchane Company (CLEC). All large phone companies rely on CLEC's to route all calls, the CLEC's system immediately provides the ALI and routes the call to the closest PSAP (Public Safety Answering Point). All of this happens in a matter of seconds. At the PSAP, the 911 operator, sees a 911 call is being placed and takes the call. From this point the operator asks questions regarding the nature of the emergency and sends this to 911 dispatch services (police, medical, and fire), who send out help. In some cities police, medical, and fire dispatchers may be in the same PSAP as the operators or in a different building. Even as the operator is asking questions and relaying information to the dispatchers and EMS workers, assistance is likely already on the way if you have high-priority emergency. Corded phones will work in a power outage because they rely on the phone company for power and phone companies have numerous back-up power sources, cordless phones won't work unless put in an additional emergency battery. Fiber Phones: Verizon FiOS, which uses fiber-optic cables (highly polished and virtually unbreakable glass cables, capable of transmitting enormous amounts of data), routes 911 calls in a similar fashion to a regular landline. 911 operators will be able to see your location. However, FiOS requires a battery back-up during a power-outage and your phone may become unusable after 4-8 hours, even if you're using a corded landline phone. VoIP: VoIP stands for (Voice over Internet protocol) basically what VoIP does is compresses your voice into digital packets, which are then relayed through the public internet or a private intranet and processed before it gets to the receiver. Though it may seem like a long process, it actually happens instantaneously in real life. Because VoIP requires less bandwidth than analog systems, it can be sold for much cheaper than a traditional landline service. However, the main problem with VoIP is that it's using the internet and IP addresses can take hours even days to track down, which naturally poses a huge problem for the US's 911 emergency system. Since it was difficult to detect where the IP address for a 911 call came from and then to re-route it to a PSAP, Vonage used to route all 911 calls from customers to a Vonage-run 911 center. The Vonage operator would locate your closest PSAP and try to relay your information there. Obviously the system was slow and customers often waited 10 minutes or more emergency assistance during high-priority emergencies. One notable incident happened when during a house-fire a Texas couple used a Vonage phone to call 911, the Vonage operator misunderstood the severity of the 911 call and when she transferred the call to a local PSAP, the couple were given secondary priority, despite their house being engulfed in flames. The fire dept. took over 14 minutes to respond. If the couple had used a regular landline phone, the fire dept. estimated that it probably could have been there within 5 minutes. Another incident happened in Canada when a family who moved their Vonage service, but didn't inform Vonage of the address change. Unfortunately, their son had a seizure and help was sent to the wrong address. Eventually an ambulance came after 25 minutes. Due to the limitations and ineffectiveness of Vonage's 911 system, the FCC passed sweeping E911 regulations for VoIP services. Since Vonage phones are usually used as a second phone line or for traveling, Vonage requires customers who are interested in E911/basic 911 service to register their number with Vonage. See the 911 User's Guide on Vonage's website: http://www.vonage.com/support.php?keyword=911UserGuide. If you register your Vonage phone for 911 services, your service adresss information will be provided to Vonage CLEC, which in the event of an emergency call will route your call to the nearest PSAP. In areas where Vonage E911 is supported the 911 operator at the PSAP will have your ALI information, if your area doesn't currently support Vonage E911, you will be provided with basic 911 service, meaning that the call to 911 will go to a PSAP, but there will be no ALI info provided. In the event of a system failure, your call will be re-routed to a national Vonage emergency center. Comcast, one of the nation's largest cable companies, entered the landline market in 2005. Comcast uses VoIP, but uses a Comcast owned intranet system to route calls. Therefore, if your internet or cable is out, your phone will still work. Comcast became one of the first VoIP providers to offer true E911 services. Comcast takes ALI information for all customers and provides them to Comcast owned CLEC's, which then routes all 911 calls to a local PSAP and provides ALI information. Currently the system is 98% reliable and improving, although it's technically possible for an emergency call to get stuck and Comcast doesn't re-route the call to a call center. This was why in 2007, a Philadelphia man who called about his son couldn't get through to 911 and was forced to use his cell phone to contact emergency services. The FCC became more strict with all VoIP providers in 2007 and Comcast now does regular checks to see if its 911 system is working. If you move, you must update your service address and E911 information or otherwise, your call won't go to the right place. Due to the popularity of VoIP services, many cities encourage residents to work with the local police or sheriff's dept. to arrange for a non-emergency call to 911 during a non-busy time (for instance, early Sunday morning), so that VoIP customers can check if their E911 system is working. Cell Phones: In the 1990s if you needed emergency assistance you could simply find a nearby payphone and if needed could dial 911 for free. Since payphones worked like landlines, the location was immediately provided to the 911 operator. However, as cell phones became more & more popular and payphones diminished, providing 911 services became more difficult. Originally 911 calls would be routed to state trooper's offices or to the highway patrol, if needed they could re-route the call. However, after hearing numerous horror stories where people were unable to communicate with operators or were unable to get help because they mispronounced intersections or misread addresses, the FCC decided on upgrading the 911 infrastructure. E911 phase 1 and phase 2 were planned, in 2004 all cellphones were required to be E911 phase 1 compliant, a phase 1 compliant phone would provide the location of the nearest cell tower. In 2008, all major cell phone services became E911 phase 2 compliant, on new GPS-equipped cellphones, 911 operators can now see your location within 300 to 1,000 feet. 300-1,000 feet in an open field is great, but 300-1,000 feet off in city can make it very difficult to find someone. Most cellphone companies can pinpoint the location of the caller to within 15-30 feet, 5 minutes after the call was placed. What defines an emergency: This is one of the major problems with having a universal emergency number is that people who need assistance, don't realize what constitutes an emergency and what doesn't. Basically 911 is for life and death emergencies or for when you're in immediate danger. Most people have few to no problems getting emergency assistance during a fire or medical emergency, but people wonder why the police response times can vary hugely. Here are some examples of emergencies: Fire Emergencies: 1. Your house or building is on fire. 2. You have a small, but spreading fire in your home or workplace, but can't control it. 3. You see a park or national forest on fire and it's spreading. 4. You controlled the fire, but are severely burned 5. You notice a large sinkhole opening up in the road. Non-emergencies: 1. Your slightly burned your finger on an iron or stove 2. You had a cooking fire, but were able to control it with no damages. 3. You see a small pothole in the road. To report small potholes dial up 311 (non-emergency service available in many cities) or go online to your city government's website and email the transportation department). Medical Emergencies: 1. Heart Attack or Stroke 2. Person is severely choking and the Heimlich maneuver didn't work or if no one in the room knows how to perform it. 3. A severely broken bone(s), the person can't move, or is in uncontrollably excruciating pain. 4. Severe dehydration with diarrhea, and person is unable to move, drink water, or continues to vomit uncontrollably or vomits blood. 5. A gunshot wound 6. Uncontrollable bleeding or severe injuries from assault or a fight. Non-emergencies: 1. minor fractures of bones, which pain can be controlled and the person can be taken directly to the hospital. 2. toothache 3. small burn 4. tummy ache 5. headache Police Emergencies: 1. Most major crimes in progress (burglary, car theft, assault, etc.) 2. If you see another person is being vicitmized physically on exceedingly threatened and is in progress with credible threats. 3. Major accidents with lots of damage and injuries likely 4. Parking lot accidents with damage above $500-1000 and the parties won't share insurance information willingly. In some cities, you may be transferred to the non-emergency number, but a police officer should be dispatched. If you dial 911, make sure to tell the operator that the other party won't share infromation, the extent of the damage, and report any threats, curses, and/or abuses used against you by the other party. Police non-emergencies: 1. Parking lot accidents with little damage and both parties are cooperative and share information. File a vehicle incident report at a local police station and call up your insurance. 2. Minor assault with no-injuries, call up your city's or county's regular police number. 3. Non-credible threats 4. Burglary that aren't in progress. If you come back and your car's stolen you can likely file a claim over the phone. House burglaries generally require police assistance, but call the non-emergency number. If you're stuff is stolen, report it at a local police station. 5. Crimes that aren't in progress, but have witnesses. 6. Muggings that are over, don't stay there and call 911. Get to a safe location, call the police or go down to a police station. Report what happened clearly and any injuries that you have sustained. 7. Most other crimes that are not in progress. 8. Noise complaints 9. Not in-progress property theft (eg., property stolen from your car). Non-emergencies that don't require police, fire, or medical assistance: 1. McDonald's screwed you out of 50 cents, talk to the manager or file complaint with the BBB. 2. Consumer problems, contact the BBB, FTC, DOT, your state attorney general's office, or the FCC. If you need legal assistance, you can file a consumer complaint form at local police station or contact a lawyer. 3. Your trash wasn't picked up, Burger King couldn't make your hamburger properly, you see a small pothole in the road, your turkey won't cook on Thanksgiving, not knowing today's date, you have a hangover from being drunk, your cable is out, you think you're spouse is cheating on you, you need help with your math homework, or any other inconvience, which can be handled in much better ways then calling the police or dialing 911. Shockingly, in each of the above situations, people have called 911. Emergency response times: To understand how emergency response works, we need to understand how 911 prioritizes calls. Code 1: Non-emergency, but requires assistance. A few emergency vehicles will be contacted, but if a higher priority emergency comes in those vehicles may take that call, instead. After 15-18 minutes, a unit is dispatched directly, but the vehicle can't use lights and sirens and must obey traffic rules. For instance, this why the police can take up to 30-40 minutes to respond to burglary not in progress. Code 2: lower-priority emergency, however, emergency assistance is required relatively quickly. Lights and sirens may be used at certain areas. Code 3: imminent danger to life, quickest emergency response. Lights and sirens must be used at all times and multiple vehicles may be required. Of course, codes differ from department to department, some even having up to 10 emergency codes (in Denver, police use a code 0 (highest priority) - code 8 (lowest priority) system), but this should give you an idea of how "emergency" calls are prioritized. Response times vary hugely, due to weather, traffic conditions, priority of emergency, etc. In Denver, where I live. For a code 3 high priority emergency, the typical emergency response times are something like this: Medical: 3-7 minutes for class A/B paramedics to arrive via a firetruck. Ambulances with class A paramedics take around 10 minutes. Fire: 3-7 minutes for a fire-truck to arrive to a large fire. Police: 4-8 minutes. Code 2: lower-priority emergency when dialing 911 Medical: 15 minutes for an ambulance Police: 10-15 minutes Fire: 10-15 minutes Code 1: non-emergency calls placed to 911 Medical: 30 minutes for an ambulance Fire: around 20-30 minutes Police: around 15-40 minutes Non-emergency call placed directly to the police number: Police: 15-30 minutes Why are non-emergency calls placed to the police dept. directly responded to more quickly than 911 non-emergency calls? Most cities only have about 1/2 or 2/3 of their police force at one time on patrol/911 duties. Most police departments try to strategically assign cars so that they can respond effectively to calls. When police dispatch gets a 911 non-emergency call they contact 2-3 cars to see if they will take the call, many officers wait for sometime before accepting the call because a higher-priority call may come in. After 15-18 minutes, the police dispatch will signal a car to directly take the non-emergency call. When you dial the police non-emergency number directly, the police dispatch will ask you some questions and can then signal a nearby police car, which may or may not be closest car to your location, to directly proceed to your location. In both cases, police officers are prohibited from using their lights & sirens and must follow all traffic rules. **NOTE: the above non-emergency times will vary from city to city. In Denver, the police will try to respond to all emergency calls within 8 minutes and non-emergency calls within 30 minutes. In larger cities. for instance, LA or New York City non-emergency response times may vary from 15 minutes to 1 hour. Why does the Fire Dept. respond to high priority medical calls before an ambulance?: Nearly all firefighters in the United States, have basic life support (BLS) training meaning that they can provide assistance to ailing patient before an ambulance can arrive. Fire Trucks are often placed in more strategic locations, are large vehicles, and have very loud sirens, meaning that they generally can reach the location of a medical emergency very quickly. Most ambulances are privatized and operate within certain areas, so they may take longer to respond. In some cities, for instance, in Denver, all firefighters are certified paramedics and are trained in advanced life support (ALS). What is a class "B" and class "A" medic: Most paramedics start off as EMT-B's meaning that they receive Basic Life support training. Even receiving EMT-B training is a rigorous process and these medics have to undergo lots of testing before they can get certified. A class A medic or a full-fledged paramedic gets extra training, known as Advanced Life Support. Class A medics can make $5,000-15,000 more than an EMT-B. Quality of Emergency Service personnel & compensation: 911 operators: 911 operators are generally the voice of 911 that public hears and deals with when they are in an emergency. Most 911 operators undergo rigorous training (6 months-1 year) to make sure that they know how to handle emergency calls. 911 operators are taught to remain as calm as possible, even when dealing with an extremely frightening call. 911 operators are advised to ask as many relevant questions as possible, in order to learn more about the emergency and to make sure the person receives an appropriate response. For instance, 911 operators must make sure if a situation requires one unit or multiple units and must understand the situation well enough, that they don't put emergency service personnel in danger. Average compensation: $25,000-$35,000 for full-time operators, part time operators: $12-16/hour Police Officers: Most US police officers are generally chosen according to professional criteria and are hardworking, honest individuals. However, due to some incidents in the 1980s many police can be a little trigger happy, this is why officers hold their hands near the guns and can get very antsy about unexpected movements, until they know for sure that the person they're talking to isn't a threat. Most police officers I have dealt have been consummate professionals and even pretty helpful, however, bad apples do always exist. If you're interested you can go to wikipedia and look up the NYPD controversies, to see how a few bad cops can ruin the reputation of over 50,000 officers (the overwhelming majority who do their jobs properly). Police Controversies: No police force is without controversies and US police forces aren't an exception. Many US police forces have come under scrutiny for using excessive force against protesters or suspects who have given up. Many police controversies can easily have two sides. In Denver during the DNC in 2008, the actions of the Denver Police were less than admirable leading to the suspension of many officers. One notable incident occurred when an ABC news reporter doing a piece on the corrupting influence of lobbyists on US politics outside the Brown Palace Hotel in Downtown Denver. Throughout the day, the ABC news reporter blocked the entrance of the hotel and pestered lobbyists as well as top Democrats to answer questions. The hotel owner asked the police to help remove the ABC news reporter from impeding the business entrance. Over the next 2-3 hours, the ABC news reporter was asked to move 4 times, but they continued to persist. Finally, a police officer apparently having enough the ABC news reporter's attitude told the reporter that we won't "hold on" any longer and pushed the reporter several times across the street, where he was arrested. An arresting police Sargent grabbed the reporters neck momentarily and one officer was heard jokingly saying "you're lucky we didn't beat the f--k out of you." The reporter was released later and the police dropped all charges and the officer who held the reporter's throat was suspended for a week w/o pay. Most people across the US were surprised about the brutal tactics by the police used against the reporter, which I agree were completely unacceptable. However, the entrance to a business is private property and no citizen has the right to impede it, business entrances aren't public sidewalks. Compensation: $38,000-$60,000 depending on experience and rank. Average is around $52,000 in Denver. Detectives can make anywhere from $40,000-88,000 (average in Denver is between: $65,000-72,000) depending on experience and rank. Firefighters: Most firefighters are extremely courageous people who willingly risk their lives to help others every single day. In Denver many firefighters are class A trained paramedics capable of handling almost any medical emergency if an ambulance hasn't arrived. Compensation: $40,000-53,000 (overtime pay is common, though). Many firefighters are volunteers. Paramedics: As I have stated above most paramedics undergo rigorous training and licensing exams before earning their certification. Class A paramedics may earn between $38,000-$52,000, EMT-B's earn around $28,000-35,000. Limitations of 911: Despite being a good system, which enables citizens to easily access emergency services, 911 has several limitations and isn't immune to failures. -In order to call 911, you must have working phone service: Many people have had phone lines cut or outages, which prevented them from calling 911 in the event of an emergency. Despite the best efforts of the FCC, your 911 experience depends highly on what type of phone you call from (whether it be landline/fiber, VoIP, or Cell). -You must be able to communicate effectively with the 911 operator. Many times when people have to 911, they use it as a last resort to get immediate assistance, when their basic survival needs are in danger. Thus, many callers are far from calm and it can be very hard for a 911 operator to distinguish the true nature of an emergency. In addition, many people are so frazzled that they are unable to answer questions and this can lead to the emergency being assigned a wrong priority or even the wrong type of service, for instance, a police officer responding to a call about someone having a heart attack. Many times people who are unable to communicate in perfectly fluent English often receive less than optimal service from 911. -Even though 911 has pretty fast response times, it's not telaportation device, emergency services will take time to come. If you're in imminent danger, the best thing to do is to find a safer location and then dial 911. -Time needed to determine the validity of the call: 911 operators receive all types of calls, many of them are frivolous, such as people whining about trash not being picked up, small potholes, cheating spouses, McDonald's not having their hamburger they wanted, etc. Thus, operators are forced to ask numerous questions in order to determine the true nature of an emergency (this can be frustrating, even dangerous if someone isn't a good position to talk), although help is usually dispatched within the first minute of a 911 call. -Overworked 911 workers: Emergency service staffs often have to work extremely long shifts and mistakes do happen, sometimes the consequences can be deadly. For instance, in Atlanta in 2007, a college student called 911 on her cellphone to report a suspicious person trying to break into her room, the call got disconnected and when the 911 operator called back she spoke to a man who said the call was a prank. No help was ever sent and the girl was kidnapped and eventually killed, the 911 operator should have asked to speak the girl and should have dispatched a police officer to go and asses the situation. The 911 operator was re-trained for a month and went back to her job, although now all cellphone calls in that county go through police dispatch. -911 and emergency service personnel immunity: Over 99% of 911 calls are handled professionally and assistance is provided in a timely manner. However, what amazes me is how much immunity 911 services have when something does go terribly wrong. Technically when you call 911, it's seen as a request for help, 911 has no duty to respond to every call. This is because if they did have a duty to respond to every call, 911 would need to dispatch a police officer for every idiot who called to complain about Burger King not being able to make a hamburger correctly. However, the 911 and police "no duty to respond" clause has been used successfully in court to help 911 operators and police departments out of bad situations. If a doctor can lose his/her medical license over a few misplaced cuts that went horribly wrong or a commercial airline pilot can lose his/her pilot's license for 5-10 years, even permanently, over a few jerky motions in high winds, which caused their plane to crash, I don't see why 911 personnel are given such a high-degree of immunity. -The numerous ways to accidentally dial 911. Many times people accidentally dial due to area codes with similar numbering, while making international calls, people who put 911 on speed dial in their cell phones, or children who are curious about how 911 works. Many people who accidentally dial 911, hang up, forcing the 911 operator to call you back and in some cases forcing an officer to be dispatched to a situation in which, assistance isn't needed. My family has had several mis-dials with 911, for instance, when calling to Delhi the code is 011 91 11 555 5555 (the 555 number is fake). Often times if you forget to put 011 first, the call will immediately get re-directed as a 911 call, one time the operator even sent the police out just to check. Or sometimes if you dial 01191115555555 without pausing from a landline phone, your E911 info. can go to the police who will end up calling your back. Children's curiosity with 911 can be a major problem too, for instance, when I was a child, my friend and I were playing with a toy fire truck, which had DIAL 911 EMERGENCY on it. So being little kids and my friend being curious he dialed 911, I knew that 911 could get the location of the call almost immediately so I made him hang up, but not before he got out "Hello." The police ended up calling my parents and an officer was dispatched out. Now you know why they don't put 911 on toys anymore. :-) The Police protection myth: Many people that police officers are there to protect them from any crime, which simply isn't the case. If it was, we would not see murders, violent crimes, robberies, etc. Police officers are meant to protect their communities from crimes and to provide assistance to individuals who need it. Most police officers are very hardworking individuals who try their best to protect their communities, but they aren't bodyguards. As an individual, you are the best defence against any crime intended towards you, not the police. If you make decent choices, avoid walking in desolate areas of the night, properly secure your home, etc. you will likely face little to no trouble in life. In addition, individuals have the right to carry concealed weapons responsibly (should they feel the need to), carry mace or pepper spray, or learn an art of self defense, for instance, karate. Is 911 effective: Absolutely yes! 911 has saved millions of American/Canadian lives in the past 50 years and continues to provide citizens with quick access to emergency services. Despite the best efforts of the government, 911 has several limitations and isn't immune to mistakes, some of which can be deadly. In addition, the effectiveness of the 911 system is also dependent on how accurately and clearly the caller can describe the emergency situation. How can we improve 911: 911 is a good system, but it still has room for lots of improvements. Here are some examples. -Improve response times. 911 is generally able to provide emergency assistance very quickly in a critical emergency. However, response times can always be improved. Even a minute or two can save hundreds, even thousands of lives. -The FCC plans on instituting cellphone E911 phase III by 2015-2017, which should provide 911 operators with better location information for cellphone callers. In addition, the FCC will continue to add more strict regulations regarding VoIP E911. -Continue to improve 911 infrastructure. Most 911 services are well-funded and improvements to the system occur frequently. For instance, more PSAP's could make use of the smart911.org database, which provides information about a caller's medical needs, photos, and home information (eg., entrances placed in unfamiliar locations). -Continue to increase the number of emergency service personnel. Unfortunately, due to the current recession, many city governments have been unable to add emergency service personnel, even as cities continue to grow. After the recession is over, hopefully, we will see cities add more emergency service personnel, which should reduce the number of overworked emergency service workers. In addition, increasing the capacity of the current 911 system would be beneficial. Currently, most 911 systems operate around 80-90% of capacity, perfectly fine for a normal day, but during a natural disaster or outbreak the 911 system in most cities can get overloaded. -More education of 911 is needed. The public needs to learn what constitutes an emergency and what doesn't. For instance, just because someone needs police assistance, doesn't make it an emergency. In addition, people need to understand that if they are in imminent danger, they need go to a safer location before they dial 911. Most cities have moderate to severe problems with large numbers of non-emergency 911 calls. Making 311 a universal non-emergency number for basic assistance would help. -911 personnel need to be rigorously trained and constantly evaluated in order to make sure the system runs effectively. Though 911 is 98-99% effective in most cities, there have been far too many cases where mis-communication or unprofessional conduct by emergency service personnel has led to injuries or even death. -reduce 911 immunity laws. 911 immunity laws are there for a reason. If we didn't have immunity laws, people who dialed 911 for frivolous reasons, would be running to sue the government. Even sorting out all of the silly lawsuits would pose a major problem for the US court system. However, I don't think the "no duty to respond" clause should be used as a loophole for emergency service failures. A doctor can't say I tried my best, but there was miscommunciation between the patient and myself, so I accidentally severely injured them, I shouldn't be sued. Why should 911 personnel be able to use a loophole? -Make 911 more accessible to people whose English may be limited. One way to alleviate this problem is by hiring more multi-lingual employees. For instance, the NYPD has been very effective with its movement to hire more multi-lingual and multi-cultural officers and detectives and to provide all officers with multicultural education courses. How does the US's 911 system compare to 999, 000, or 112: The US's 911 system is probably is consistently regarded as one of the best emergency systems in the world. Most cities' 911 and police departments are well funded and technological improvements happen frequently. I thought a comparison with other similar emergency services around the world would be interesting. The main difference between 911 and 999 in the UK, 000 in Australia, and 112 throughout much of Europe is that when someone dials 911 they usually speak directly to an operator who is able to dispatch help. When dialing 112, 000, and 999 most users either hear an automated message or an operator asking which of they following they require, police, medical, or fire and then call is forwarded to the correct dispatch center. There are benefits to both systems. With 000, 112, and 999 the operator knows exactly what type of assistance you need and has to ask fewer questions. However, for situations where all 3 (police, medical, and fire) are required, a 911 type system provides a faster response. In Japan, residents dial 110 for police assistance and 119 (the opposite of the US 911) for ambulance and fire services. Another key difference between 911 and other systems, is that if a 911 operator gets a call with location information and it's dropped, the 911 operator will call you back, if nobody responds or the operator is suspicious they may send out the police to check. Due to the extremely high number of accidental calls to 000, 999, and 112, the automated system will drop callers if no one responds in 45 seconds. In some countries people can push a two-digit number, such as 55 in Australia if they can't speak, but need assistance. Typical response times to the highest priority emergencies for each of the services (remember response times can vary): 911: police/fire: 3-8 minutes, ambulance: 8-12 minutes 112: police/fire: 5-10 minutes, ambulance: 10-15 minutes 999: police/fire: 5-12 minutes, ambulance: 8-10 minutes 000: police: 10-15 minutes (but multiple units usually respond), fire: 10-12 minutes, ambulance: 11-13 minutes 110/119: police: 2-6 minutes, fire/ambulance: 3-6 minutes A note from the author: As I said, above this review was in response to the book Dial 911 and Die!, which made a huge public splash about 5 years ago. The authors do a good job in explaining how people's flawed logic regarding the police and 911, could get them killed in an emergency. The author mentions how 911 "has no duty to respond" and that many times "911 workers are protected under law, even when their actions get people killed," "police officers have no duty to help a person in need on the street, even when that person is in danger," etc. The author is absoloutely correct, people, not police, are responsible for thir personal safety and yes 911 personnel will take time to respond, even in a critical emergency. However, readers need to remember one thing, the book was written by a lawyer. Lawyers are generally very good at twisting words to favor their arguements and this author is no exception. As I have explained above there are good reasons why 911 "has no duty to respond," would you want to see police officers dispatched for every woman who calls up to complain about her Thanksgiving turkey? 911 personnel have a great deal of immunity, if they didn't the Burger King lady would probably sue them! (Hear the call: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FZ12Ry-hD6I) Sometimes 911 operators/workers gotten off easy, but other times the actions of 911 personnel have led to loss of job, fines, suspensions, even jail time. As for the last statement, what would you expect a police officer to do if he/she couldn't handle a situation (for instance, a terrorist attack), foolishly enter the building get severely injured or killed without being able to help anyone or should they call for back-up, try to assess the situation, and save multiple lives. I understand 911 is a controversial topic among many people. However, what I have tried to do with this review is to take an in-depth look at how 911 works, its effectiveness, and its limitations in an unbiased manner. I understand that some people will disagree with my opinions on 911 and I welcome CONSTRUCTIVE criticism. Abbreviations used: During my review I used a lot of abbreviations, so here they are once again. E911 (Enhanced 911): A system used to provide location and contact information of 911 callers to 911 operators. E911 systems are found on landline/fiber phones, VoIP, and cell phones. CAD (Computer Aided Dispatch): An advanced computer based technology that allow police, fire, and EMS dispatchers to see the exact locations of emergency vehicles and allows dispatchers to dispatch the closest vehicles during an emergency. PSAP (Public Safety Answering Point): the building that houses 911 operations. CLEC (Competitive Local Exchange Company): All landline and VoIP phone companies rely on CLEC's to route calls. During a 911 call, the CLEC receives a high-priority signal, routes the call to the nearest local PSAP, and sends ALI information. ALI (Automatic Location Information): A system put in place by 1989, which provides 911 operators/dispatchers with the address and phone number of callers. As always comments and feedback are greatly appreciated. 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