What a complete cock-up emergency numbers are. On old-style phones, it was quicker to dial smaller digits, because they took less time for the phone to register. So what number did the Government choose to give to the emergency services in the UK, to be used by those who need help as quickly as possible? The very 3-digit number that takes longer to dial than any other. Did anyone bother to complain, I wonder? Did anyone notice? The number certainly never changed, so I presume not. That’s a bit odd.
Nowadays, it isn’t so much a problem, of course. Except that, even now, it’s hardly perfect. In the US, the emergency services number is, of course, 911. But why use two different digits? Common sense dictates that any complications could easily be deadly for someone who is disorientated and panic-stricken. If you’re dying on the floor with a butcher’s knife through your chest, with no-one at hand to help, you’re hardly in the mood to concentrate on moving your finger from the 9 to the 1, and to press them the right number of times and in the right order. Most countries suffer from this problem (see link). In fact, the adopted standard EU emergency number is 112, some countries even have separate numbers for fire, police and ambulance, and some of these are 8 digits long!
For all countries worldwide, surely the best solution is:
To reserve the same number for emergency services, so that you know what it is (and are not liable to forget, if you’re in a foreign country) regardless of where you are.
To have the same number for all of the emergency services.
To reserve all of the “easy” numbers as emergency services contacts, which are 000, 111, 222, … 999. Then you know that you only have to jab the same key 3 times.
It isn’t that difficult, is it? Is it too much to ask? Or does it just make too much sense?
3 comments:
I was going to propose a series of 19 digit long emergency service numbers, but am surprised to see you disagree.
If Conservatives win the election in 2010, maybe they will privatise all emergency services, and we will have the "Microsoft Ambulance" or Richard Branson's "Virgin Fire Service". They will have to make themselves stand out, but the numbers will need to ensure customer loyalty. And they will want to make sure no one bothers them by mistake, the poor and anyone who doesn't pay into their scheme, so the numbers will be huge.
Who knows, the police and all health could be private, and then, as corporations, they will do everything possible to avoid getting off the arse, or hurting profits, such as providing the service they are there for.
I can't wait to see the ambulance that is twice as long, just to fit the emergency number down the side.
Unfortunately, you know what we would get, and that is a Tescopoly of all the emergency services, the cheapest possible value range.
The best idea would be the private emergency service with a huge number for the ambulance, and if you can type in all 19 numbers, you don't get any ambulance because you weren't so ill if you could stay conscious to type in all the numbers. If you pass out while on the first 5, they send an ambulance.
Ken Clarke is a nice guy, as far as you can tell by watching him. He also has friends in high places, the type of high places that decide the outcome of democratic elections.
This week at the conference in one of his small speeches, he made a comment to the effect that gave away something he knows, and that was he spoke of the next Conservative government as though it was already a fact and happened: sort of like PC does about men, women, white and non-white, all being the same. But this wasn't an arrogance based on polls or probability, this was more the certainty of a man who has access to plans of history into the far future.
I believe that the selection of 999 was originally made for some fairly non-crap reasons (this was before the Great Competence Evaporation of '85, so some public bodies still made non-crap decisions).
First, I believe that old, unreliable, crap mechanical exchanges would sometimes arse up number being dialled, and for some electro-mechanical reason 9 was the number least likely to get munged in transmission.
Second, as any fule kno, you can easily find the 9 hole in a rotary dial by sticking two fingers next to that little metallic half-moon yagger at the bottom of the dial I don't know the name of. It was thus possible to dial 999 in the dark, while engulfed in smoke, or after being blinded by an assailant armed with a sharpened banana.
Finally, I seem to recall that 222 also works as an emergency number, and has done since half of forever; it's just that they don't bother advertising the fact.
All the best,
John
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