James Farrar wrote in
:

On Fri, 20 Jan 2006 10:50:49 GMT, "Richard J."
wrote:

David FitzGerald wrote:
112 is the international standard emergency number. It works almost
anywhere in the world. 112, I believe, is the primary energency
response number in this country with 999 being the secondary
(although far better known one).

What do "primary" and "secondary" mean in this context?

"Primary" is the one the EU says we have to have; "secondary" is the
one we choose to have.

Has Europe always just had 112? I've got dim and distant memories of a
number beginning with 9 in some European countries - maybe pre-dating the
Europe-wide 112? Am I imagining this?

As I understand it, 999 was chosen in the UK partly because it consisted of
high digits and there fore was unlikely to be dialled by accident using old
pulse-dial phones. 112 is much easier to dial this way by accident - eg
random shorting or make/break of the phone line. So how come it wasn't an
issue for Europe if it was for the UK? Had mainland European countries
already turned off pulse-dialling at their exchanges by the time 112 was
chosen?

On Thu, 19 Jan 2006, Dr John Stockton wrote:

JRS: In article , dated Wed, 18
Jan 2006 22:42:15 remote, seen in news:uk.transport.london, Jack Taylor
posted :
Martin Underwood wrote:

I would have phoned 999

I've never understood why we don't have a 'serious but not emergency'
number to call in this country,

Indeed.

In fact, all the public services, in a fairly wide sense, should have
national numbering - a "STD code" meaning "I want the one that deals
with matters local to this phone (or exchange) (or here, if dialling
from a mobile) followed by a fixed number for each service (Council, MP,
Police, Coastguard, Zoo?, BBC, Press, etc.) with perhaps two more
digits, always 00 for general and others for major departments - maybe
always 99 for "urgent".

That's a rather good idea. It might not be completely workable for
everything you might want it to work for, but it would certainly cover
enough things to be extremely useful.

The definition of "local" would depend on the service; a call to
Coastguard from Wapping should get someone Thamesside, but one from
Birmingham would probably go to national HQ.

Or the fire brigade's canal rescue unit.

tom

--
Argumentative and pedantic, oh, yes. Although it's properly called
"correct" -- Huge

David FitzGerald:
112 is the international standard emergency number. It works almost
anywhere in the world. ...

My understanding is that it is only a European standard. I'm confident
enough that it doesn't work here to try it -- and I've just confirmed
that it doesn't. If you can cite anything official saying that it is
a world standard, I'd be interested to see it.

Martin Underwood:
Has Europe always just had 112?

Certainly not. I think it was a new innovation about 10-15 years ago.

As I understand it, 999 was chosen in the UK partly because it consisted of
high digits and there fore was unlikely to be dialled by accident using old
pulse-dial phones.

Also, the 9 hole could be easily found in the dark -- an advantage of
your 999 over our 911.

In North American in pre-911 days, if you didn't know the local police
(or fire, etc.) emergency number, what you did was dial the operator
and say which service you wanted. The number is just 0 (also easy to
find in the dark, althought I don't know if that was a consideration),
and back then it was always answered by a human operator directly.

112 is much easier to dial this way by accident - eg random shorting
or make/break of the phone line. So how come it wasn't an issue for
Europe if it was for the UK?

Random shorting is much less of an issue now than it was in the early
days when 999 was adopted, particularly now that calls are transmitted
in digital format over much of their length. I don't know if there are
places where pulse dialing is no longer accepted at all, though.
--
Mark Brader | (Monosyllables being forbidden to doctors of philosophy,
Toronto | such truths are called "invariants" in the trade.)
| -- Jeff Prothero

My text in this article is in the public domain.

Mark Brader wrote:
David FitzGerald:

112 is the international standard emergency number. It works almost
anywhere in the world. ...


My understanding is that it is only a European standard. I'm confident
enough that it doesn't work here to try it -- and I've just confirmed
that it doesn't.

That's odd - it says in one-inch high letters in my printed BT Phone
Book, delivered last week "IN AN EMERGENCY DIAL 999 OR 112".


If you can cite anything official saying that it is
a world standard, I'd be interested to see it.

Martin Underwood:

Has Europe always just had 112?


Certainly not. I think it was a new innovation about 10-15 years ago.

When I was in France (1o years ago), they had (IIRC) 14, 15 and 16 for
different emergency services. (I always wondered how I'd remember which
was which in an emergency.)

In article ,
Dave Newt wrote:
Mark Brader wrote:

My understanding is that it is only a European standard. I'm confident
enough that it doesn't work here to try it -- and I've just confirmed
that it doesn't.

That's odd - it says in one-inch high letters in my printed BT Phone
Book, delivered last week "IN AN EMERGENCY DIAL 999 OR 112".

I'm pretty sure that BT don't deliver Phone Books in Mark's area ...

Nick
--
So when is Tony Blair going to start treating *us* with respect ?

Nick Leverton wrote:
In article ,
Dave Newt wrote:

Mark Brader wrote:


My understanding is that it is only a European standard. I'm confident
enough that it doesn't work here to try it -- and I've just confirmed
that it doesn't.

That's odd - it says in one-inch high letters in my printed BT Phone
Book, delivered last week "IN AN EMERGENCY DIAL 999 OR 112".


I'm pretty sure that BT don't deliver Phone Books in Mark's area ...

I just worked that out after I posted it! :-)

Mark Brader wrote:

Also, the 9 hole could be easily found in the dark -- an advantage of
your 999 over our 911.

That was the logic behind it being selected in the first place. Sadly I'm
not convinced that the new numbers being bandied around take sufficient
account of the visually impaired or people trying to find numbers in the
dark, in smoke, or when mobile/cell handset backlights don't work. A single
repeated digit is far easier to dial that a number that requires movement
around the keypad.

On Sat, 21 Jan 2006 04:15:00 -0000, (Mark Brader) wrote:

My understanding is that it is only a European standard. I'm confident
enough that it doesn't work here to try it -- and I've just confirmed
that it doesn't. If you can cite anything official saying that it is
a world standard, I'd be interested to see it.

Are you on the new electric telephone system?

"Laurence Payne" wrote in message
...
Why should many people here know the USA's emergency number at all
(e.g. I didn't until reading it here), let alone imagine it is also the
UK's one ?

TV, films, books. There seems a good case for making 999, 192, 911
all lead to the emergency service. In a moment of stress people
don't think straight. Let's open all possible doorways to assistance.

If you dial 911 on a UK mobile phone you will be connected to the UK
emergency services the same as if you had dialled 112 or 999
--
Cheers, Steve.
Change from jealous to sad to reply.

Richard J. wrote:

Aidan Stanger wrote:
Jack Taylor wrote in
:

I've never understood why we don't have a 'serious but not
emergency' number to call in this country, something like 888
would be logical.

888 would be an incredibly stupid choice, as it would've restricted
the number of potential phone numbers available even more - it
would be even worse than the present situation where Londoners (and
probably also the rest of the country) have one too many digits...

The sensible alternative would be 911, as nearly everyone already
knows it by now.

But people know 911 as the *emergency* number in the US, so many of them
would assume it was also the emergency number here. It's therefore not
a sensible choice for a "serious but not emergency" number.

On the contrary, it's a very sensible choice because anyone dialing it
would be able to contact the emergency services.

Is 113 available?

How about 000?

For anyone who doesn't know, that's the Australian emergency number.

--
Aidan Stanger
http://www.bettercrossrail.co.uk