When Did It Become Such A Chore Not To Call 911 With Your Arse?

Last Updated on: 23rd September 2019, 06:41 pm

OPP detachment gets almost 2,000 accidental 911 calls, urges people to stop butt-dialling
Officers had to respond to 1,965 accidental calls due to carelessness with phones, police say

Clearly this is a thing that happens because just look at those numbers, but I can’t figure out how. I got my first cell phone in the year 2000, and the number of times I’ve managed to call anybody let alone 911 by accident that way in the 19 years since is 0. And in that same time I think I’ve been on the receiving end of maybe two of those calls, so I’m not sure what’s going on here. Are my friends, family and I that much smarter than the average person (no) or have people just gotten more careless?

And what’s the deal with the bit about office phones? Admittedly I haven’t had to use one in a while, but since when did the 9 you dial to get an outside line have an impact on the number you’re trying to call? Or are they saying that people are dialing 9 when they don’t have to? And if that is what they’re saying, why has this not historically been an issue? What is it that’s making something as simple as a telephone suddenly so difficult?

all 1,965 calls required an officer to be dispatched, only to end up educating the phone user.
Wellington County OPP has had a total of 7,417 high-priority calls so far this year, meaning about 26 per cent of those were accidental.
OPP said each accidental call, where a dispatcher can’t determine what’s wrong or speak to someone, requires a cruiser and two officers to resolve it.
Accidental calls are a result of people playing their phone in a cup holder or their pocket, or dialling international numbers from office phones (hitting 9 and then 1).

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2 Comments

  1. The only thing I can think is some people are dumb enough to put 911 in as a contact and then have it at the top of the list. But really that was only a thing that worked on older phones. There was also a thing where you could designate a speed dial to each digit of your phone and then holding that digit would call that number, but again, older phones. Hey, I’ve made a few butt calls with my old Nokia phones, and since the iPhone, I don’t think I’ve made a single butt call.

    1. It was definitely an easier thing to do with older phones, or at least it always seemed that way to me.  One of my only butt calls was from you, as I recall.  I was always waiting for the day I made one too, but yeah, since the iPhone I’ve never worried about it.

      And I don’t understand why you would put 911 in your phone as a contact.  It’s 3 numbers and it would take just as long to dial them as it would to go to contacts and do it that way.

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