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From: roy@phri.nyu.edu (Roy Smith)
Newsgroups: comp.dcom.telecom
Subject: Re: E911 Experience
Message-ID: <9804@accuvax.nwu.edu>
Date: 16 Jul 90 17:46:04 GMT
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X-Telecom-Digest: Volume 10, Issue 490, Message 7 of 10


	This is getting a bit off the telecom track, but I once had an
odd experience with non-believing emergency folks.  About seven or so
years ago, I was walking on 42nd St and 9th Ave in New York.  The
Transit Authority had recently started buying buses with dot-matrix
destination signs, and the one I saw was flashing "Emergency", "Call
Police", "Get Help" or something like that.  Clever, I thought, and
ran across the street to grab two cops standing around.  "Hey, the
sign on the bus says to call the police!" I said.  "Huh?  What sign on
the bus?  What are you talking about?"  

You can guess the rest; I had to practically push the cops in front of
the bus before the believed me or had any idea what the hell I was
talking about.  The TA had a good idea putting emergency buttons where
the driver could hit it discretely (and this driver had done so by
accident in this case) but apparantly never got around to telling the
Police Department about it (or, I would guess, the 911 folks).


Roy Smith, 
Public Health Research Institute 
455 First Avenue, New York, NY 10016
roy@alanine.phri.nyu.edu -OR- {att,cmcl2,rutgers,hombre}!phri!roy