Except that for each second you're on the phone with the operator who is trying to find the local police agency for your location, you're wasting time. Each second is precious in an emergency; try calling when your house is on fire with your child trapped inside to find out exactly how precious each second is.
Calls from cellphones to 911 typically go the State Police dispatcher who will then have to contact the local dispatcher to actually send someone (other then the state police) to the caller.
Not always. That may be the case if you're driving on a highway, but cellphone technology these days is such that you either get routed to the agency which handles the actual geographic location of the tower you're attached to, or (if you have a newer phone) the agency whose jurisdiction you're actually in. Sure, a lot of those still get picked up by the state police because of the number of highways in our area, but we get (and have to transfer) just as many of their calls as they get of ours.
Correct -- while this suggestion seems to make sense, the reason 911 works the way it does is because of the E911 information we receive. If you just dial the 7 (or 10, with area code) digit number to reach the dispatch center, they'll never get your location information.
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Except that for each second you're on the phone with the operator who is trying to find the local police agency for your location, you're wasting time. Each second is precious in an emergency; try calling when your house is on fire with your child trapped inside to find out exactly how precious each second is.
Calls from cellphones to 911 typically go the State Police dispatcher who will then have to contact the local dispatcher to actually send someone (other then the state police) to the caller. Not always. That may be the case if you're driving on a highway, but cellphone technology these days is such that you either get routed to the agency which handles the actual geographic location of the tower you're attached to, or (if you have a newer phone) the agency whose jurisdiction you're actually in. Sure, a lot of those still get picked up by the state police because of the number of highways in our area, but we get (and have to transfer) just as many of their calls as they get of ours.
Correct -- while this suggestion seems to make sense, the reason 911 works the way it does is because of the E911 information we receive. If you just dial the 7 (or 10, with area code) digit number to reach the dispatch center, they'll never get your location information.