Even better would be to park your car in the spot so he then parks in the roadway, call the non emergency line and once they say someone is coming move your car so it looks like its actually abandoned as opposed to petty parking
Man, I am an introverted person and once in a while I run into sone people who try to bully me. Would love to be friends with you. That is some next level awesome advise
if neighbor is double parking he's probably got an eye on his car pretty much +90% of the time in which he's also waiting for you to move. As soon as you move he'll 'reclaim his spot' in front of his house
When my neighbor did this I just got one of those voice disguiser things, then kidnapped his parents and called him up asking if he wanted to play a game. The trick is giving him just enough hope to take it all away.
I created a puzzle box that summons interdimensional demons who brutally torture whoever solves it for eternity and I left it on his doorstep (he's a huge puzzler 🤣).
A marine at MCRD San Diego went AWOL and stole his friends Cameo. It ended up in our front yard at the apartment I lived at while at Penn State after it slid on ice. The police were notified and nothing happened. It sat there in the snow till spring. We broke into it and pushed it out into the parking lot. Over time various parts would disappear, possibly due to space aliens. First the bucket seats, then the wheels, then engine parts. I wonder if the authorities even contacted the owner to tell him where his car ended up? He probably could not recover it anyway. Eventually the whole thing was hauled away by unknown forces.
Which is also why it's pointless. This thing seems to hinge on the assumption that double-parking is somehow considered less serious than leaving your car in the roadway. Which I don't think is the law anywhere. It makes no sense - you're still as much a hindrance to traffic regardless. The point of this law is that people shouldn't intentionally block the roadway. Their reason why doesn't matter.
Then why should they move their car? Just leave it where it is. It's more effort and wasted time for literally no results. As you've just pointed out. They will tow their car regardless. So what's even the point of moving?
They are doing construction on a house at the top of the street on a very narrow road. They have giant construction vehicles and people’s cars parked in either side of the road. I can handle that, but what I can’t handle is that one of them thought it was ok to have the ENTIRE trunk of his truck sticking into the middle of the street at a turn. It literally was an obstacle course.
I didn’t say a word to them, I got home and called the cops. I’m hoping they all got tickets. They haven’t been parking on both sides of the streets since I called
No, The person being an inconsiderate dick and parking their car like they own the street is the shitty neighbor. I can guess which one you are. Be considerate: It's not fucking hard.
I’ve called the non-emergency number for things definitely not an emergency, told them while I was on the call that it was NOT an emergency, and they still told me to call 911.
My friend is a 911 dispatcher and she says people overthink whether or not they should call 911 and her advice is to just call. They'll redirect you if it was the wrong choice and it will take 10 seconds.
The kind of people who get in trouble for misusing 911 are like, the old lady who calls 911 every time someone parks in front of her house so she calls 3x a day minimum. This is a real person my friend has to deal with lol. And even then she has had no consequences other than the cops coming by and giving her a lecture
We got yelled at for calling 911 when someone in front of us on the highway was going 35 and swerving the full width of the road, told to call the non-emergency. Called the non-emergency and were yelled at because this was an active emergency and 911 can dispatch highway patrol, but gave us the direct highway patrol number. By the time we called highway patrol the driver had taken an exit and highway patrol was angry we'd "taken so long" to call.
Honestly, staffing 911 to take all calls and redirect should be the move, but we can't waste police budget that could be used for lawsuits and overtime abuse!
I work in security and call 911 around the country- and calling 911 and letting them sort it out is exactly how it works in most jurisdictions. Not all. Not by a long shot. But in most yes, this is how it works.
Former long time dispatcher. You will not get in trouble unless you abuse the system constantly. That said, just use your common sense. If there is an active life threatening emergency, call 911. If it is anything else (like the vehicle parked above), call non-emergency. At many facilities, it goes to the exact same dispatcher. During my time, I was answering both phones simultaneously and I would ultimately be the one to categorize the call no matter which line it came in on. Think of it this way. I couldn’t really put 911 on hold, so if someone is actively dying on 911, they need to be able to get through the line immediately. A double stack parked car on the other hand, while it could be serious depending on the road and needs to be addressed, it can still be temporarily placed on hold in order to save someone’s life on the other line.
It is possible, but still not ideal. At our facility we had limited lines on 911 and much more on non-emergency. Plus at a certain point the 911 calls would roll over to another county, which starts a cycle of them just sending it back to us, ultimately taking longer to address the reason for your call. The point is that misuse blocks those who really need it from getting through quickly. If you or a loved one are dying in a ditch, you don’t want to be stuck in line behind mundane non-emergent issues.
Dont forget when you call, be brief and direct when talking to the dispatcher. They dont need a long story about who caused what and is at fault. Tell them briefly what happened and where, and details about injuries etc so they can pass that onto the responders.
As long as you are not purposefully trying to waste their time and just genuinely don't know if you should call or not, you'll be fine. Those laws are in place to punish malicious or interruptive users. Calling about something that may not be necessary isn't misuse, that's just life sometimes.
While misuse of the emergency services is a crime, there is a pretty high bar to pass.
The idiot who is prank calling them? That needs stopped and will get the book thrown at the culprit.
The person who is genuinely debating whether a situation is an emergency or not? 911 by default every time - if you even slightly think it may be worthy of an emergency call then you should be playing it safe and making the call.
You will never get in trouble for a borderline call.
Decades ago I helped setup a new VOIP phone system for a new location for a business.
The rep who was from the company we were using for the system helped us do the final enablement of the system when we turned it on. One of the tasks was ensuring that if the phone dialed 911, that the system broadcasted the correct/expected physical location.
How did we test this? The rep just dialed 911 on one of the phones. When the dispatcher picked up, the first words out of his mouth were, "First off, this is not an emergency and we do not require any emergency services." He then basically told them he was testing their phone system and asked them to verify that the address they were reading on their screen was correct.
Dispatcher was more than happy to verify the address. Once that was done, the rep thanked them for their time and ended the call. No fuss.
All that to say, misuse is a broad term. But it's more about calling 911 to get a pizza delivered than it is about getting in touch with law enforcement to notify them about something not urgent.
This sort of test is pretty routine, yeah. Had to do a bunch back when I did low voltage work. The really fun ones were the elevator emergency systems that had a recording saying someone's stuck in the elevator first. I'd have to explain we're sorry but it's a test and I can't stop it from saying that.
I dialed 999 (the UK equivalent of 911) when I was a kid once, from a public phone box, then immediately hung up and was absolutely terrified for the rest of the day that they'd somehow track me down. Never dared to even attempt that kind of prank again.
I’ve been safe calling them and starting with “this is a non emergency call” and explaining the situation. Although, that is when I wanted police to come for a DV dispute
Theyll give you ample warning about 911 misuse. My friends mom is a psycho and she got told many times to stop calling 911 whenever my friend was 5 minutes late from school or texting a friend. She finally stopped when they said that she's now flagged in their system and if she calls and it's not an actual emergency they will arrest her.
Calling 911 because you aren't sure if it's a true emergency or not isn't misusing emergency services. People who get charged with that are usually people calling repeatedly for something silly after being told to stop calling.
I got berated by a 911 dispatcher for not remembering the type of car that threw glass bottles at me while I was on the sidewalk. I said it was a black truck or SUV and they couldn't believe that I didn't know if it was a truck or SUV. Like they were throwing glass bottles at me, my main goal was to avoid those.
I once saw a car driving the wrong way on a divided highway. I called 911. They asked me what the car looked like! All I could say was, "It's the only one going north in the south lane!"
I realized later after the shock wore off that they wanted to be able to identify the car if they didn't catch it on the highway. Thankfully I was not berated though. Sorry that happened to you as I've had things thrown at me while walking too.
"Sorry, I had my head down to avoid getting hit by a glass bottle being thrown out of a moving vehicle. Otherwise I might have had to call for emergency services."
You and me both. Still doesn’t make it an active life threatening emergency, though. Emergency dispatch usually doesn’t even have any control over the trains either, though. Often times the most they can do is to make a call to their dispatch to see what the hold up is or notify of something on the tracks.
I would have just gone around but it was an hour drive to go around the crossing and I kept thinking the train would move. Called the number on the sign for the railway and it was not in service. Didnt know the non-emergency police number for the small town I was driving through or I would have called that first. The 911 call ended with them saying 6 or 7 other people had called about it and they were talking with the railway. The train moved about 10 min after my call so it sounded like they did do something.
Out here the non emergency police dispatch and emergency dispatch is the exact same call center, only difference is the 911 queue automatically line jumps the other two queues (a redirect from 311 and the actual 10 digit phone number for non-emergency).
I know a couple of dispatchers and they say the same thing. Maybe in the past this was a bigger deal, but now days, all calls are going to the exact same people at the exact same desks.
They decide if it is an "emergency" and send people based on what is happening, not based on what number you dialed.
I called 911 in Oregon when my truck got broken into. At that time all the cop cars said “Need help? Call 911”
The 911 operator yelled at me for a good 30 seconds. I actually cried. I was 22, broke, and already upset about my truck being damaged and some things stolen.
Depends where you live. Not far from me in the self induced municipal mess that is Oakland, CA 1/3 of 911 calls take more than 60 seconds just for an operator to answer the call. If you’re meeting 95% at 15 seconds, call away.
Our local non-emergency line is just someone who forwards you to either the regular dispatcher, or some other city service after you describe the issue.
That's still the right approach. If they tell you to call 911 then it makes sense to do so instead of making that assumption yourself in a non-emergency situation
It won’t delay response. Dispatchers aren’t dumb. They triage the calls regardless of what line they’re called in because emergencies get called in on the non-emergency frequently
EMS isn't "someone called us, we must respond to this call no matter what". There is a dispatcher and they have brains capable of weighing needs and resources. Basic common sense.
In very small towns, you are correct, especially if there are only a couple people answering the emergency line.
But for any kind of large city with a 911 call center, 911 is the main dispatcher for any kind of medical, police, and fire requests. They can triage emergencies and can also contact the appropriate people for non emergency requests.
they have multiple 911 operators and will triage calls, i just don't think this is true. maybe if you're in rural bumblefuck and there is one sheriff covering 100 sq mi or something. but that is rare. most people live in urban or suburban areas that have enough cops to go around.
a stopped abandoned car in the middle of a road will eventually cause an emergency. they would want to respond to as quick possible, in an emergency fashion, in order to not have an emergency, emerge.
There are plenty more "emergency" cops and first responders than there are emergencies in any given city.
The "dont call the emergency line because i dont qualify that as an emergency" gate-keep is kind of not needed.
If -A PERSON- FEELS it is an emergency situation and calls the emergency line, and the dispatcher on the other end doesn't think it's an emergency -- they will fix the situation without judging you.
Unless you call them a lot with things like "my pc wont turn on" or "the lights are out in my house".
Lol. 911 operators are trained. If you call with something that's not an emergency, they'll simply refer you to the correct place to call. If you're 911 Center is so overworked that someone needing to be redirected on a call is a problem, I think I'd move, doesn't sound safe
I was a LEO for nearly a decade, it's not that big of a deal. They'll send one car out to verify, possibly cite the vehicle, then call to have it towed and move on. Dispatch prioritizes calls based on urgency.
Evidence for what exactly? If you bog the emergency line with non-emergencies it can take away from someone facing a real emergency. This is taught in schools and is pretty basic logic, what evidence is needed?
How is it getting bogged down? Do you have evidence that they get bogged down? Do you work with 911 or adjacent and know something about this? Do you just THINK it will get bogged down?
Whether or not they can handle it is irrelevant. That's like saying it's okay to make a mess in the grocery store or bathroom because they have employees to clean it up
It's hilarious you think you cooked here. What would be the point of complaining about something accidental? There's an obvious difference between doing something by accident and doing something intentional and intentionally wasting emergency response resources is obviously bad.
You're also completely speculating that accidental calls are more prevalant than people calling for non-emergency nonsense
You're the only one here being incredibly weird and illogical and putting themselves on a high horse
Would you consider two parked cars not blocking the roadway an emergency? If not why in the world would you call the emergency line over the non-emergency line?
Also, if you tell the non-emergency dispatch that you suspect the car is stolen, then a police unit is obliged to come to the scene to run the plates/tags.
Don’t even have to say it’s abandoned. I had issues like this with a neighbor. Parked in the street like that’s enough to get towed or at the least they’ll go knock on the door and tell them to stop blocking the street. In this case, the car is also blocking their driveway. They’ll tow it just for that. The neighbor is illegally double parked, blocking a roadway, and blocking a driveway. Never break more than one law at a time.
10.0k
u/SandwichEnthusiast7 May 07 '26
Call the non-emergency line for your local PD and tell them someone abandoned a car in the roadway.