April 23, 2007
Growing wireless use highlights limitations of 911
USA Today points one of the more serious limitation of dialing 911 on your cell phone: the dispatcher probably won't be able to pinpoint your location.
"Unless you can get to a pay phone — not an option in this case — you'll probably have to give the dispatcher detailed information about your location so emergency personnel can find you.
And sometimes, people don't know where they are, or they are wrong about their location. Others can't talk because they are hurt, incapacitated or being victimized by a crime in progress.
The problem is getting worse. 60% of 911 calls are made from home, and more and more people are using cell phones as their primary phone.
Emergency 911, created in 1968, was predicated on the idea that people would call from home or pay phones with fixed addresses that could be fed to the local 911 office, known as a "public safety answer point," or PSAP."
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