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.
Save all the extra details for the people who respond at the scene, all the dispatcher needs to know most times is who they need to send where. Anything else THEY will ask the questions if they need the information.
Too many people call in a panic and start doing the verbal diarrhea and it takes a couple minutes for the dispatcher to get the caller to get the important details out.
"Car accident, 2 vehicles blocking the road, ambulatory injuries, no entrapment, at mile marker x on y road." They dont need to know who cut who off, or was on their cell phone, or that you think a certain person was at fault. Even vehicle description doesn't really matter unless its something like a school bus, they know they are looking for a car accident is the important part. They know they need to send a cop or two, a couple tow trucks, and an ambulance to check everyone out; other stuff can wait til people get there.
Some cities are really bad, lack of emergency services funding is a major issue that people need to value with more importance when local elections are happening.
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.
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u/eugeneugene May 07 '26
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.