Say it again for me...

...its like the whole world stops to listen...

Lets talk about an instance when it is ok to witness an emergency and not call 911.

Think about the busiest interstate in your state. Imagine how many cars pass a given point on that road, both directions, day in and day out. Even in the middle of the night, when traffic volumes are at their lowest, thats a whole lotta cars.

Take California for example. On the 580 freeway during peak times, they can see 26,000+ cars per hour. Mind boggling, aint it? So lets say a slow night for them is 5,000 cars per hour. That seems fair, even a little low. 5,000 cars passing mile post 10 every hour. Roughly 83 cars per minute. Well over 1 per second. Now let's say that 3 out of every 5 cars has a cell phone in it. The actual statistic is even higher, I'm sure. Oh no! A car breaks down at mile post 10 and catches on fire. If even half of all the cars carrying cell phone calls 911 that very minute...well, that's roughly 25 or so calls the minute the fire starts.

And then 25 more calls every minute until the fire truck gets there. Wow. I know it doesn't sound like all that much. But in the 4 minutes it takes the fire truck to get there (and that is being generous!), we can rack up 100 calls. At 4 am, even one of the busiest 911 centers in the nation is only staffing two 911 operators. So, yes, you can imagine what happens now. What we are basically doing is this: "911, are you reporting the car fire on I-such and such?" If the caller says yes, we say "Thanks, we've got reports of it." and hang up. Its all we can do. There is no way to keep up with the calls.

What I never understand though, is really, do all 99 of those callers think no one else has already called in? Think how highly visible this incident is, and how prevalent cell phones are these days. Really? You thought you were the only one?!? At 911, we are aware of these things almost before they happen. We are omnipotent. All-seeing. I hate to burst your little hero-bubble but, only one caller can have the fastest fingers and tell us something we don't already know. It will almost never be you. Especially if you're driving by when the car is fully engulfed. Think about it! We got the first call when the little puffs of smoke were still coming out from under the hood. You think it went fully engulfed unnoticed? Thanks for calling 911 and cluing us in on the car thats been on fire for 3 minutes. That's 75 other callers ahead of you!

Just stop for a minute and think. If you're calling 911 about a high profile incident, look around you. Do 50 other people have eyes on the same thing? If so, I promise we already know about it. Please leave the 911 lines clear, someone on the other side of town may have a real emergency. Like a neighbor who is playing loud music.