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911 Emergency.

The case for making 911 the universal emergency number for the entire world.

The above cartoon is hilarious, but all too real a problem for international travellers. Different countries have different emergency numbers, and travellers don't necessarily memorise the emergency number of the country they're visiting.

In 2012 the International Telecommunication Union officially set two standard emergency phone numbers for countries to use in the future with member states agreeing that either 911 or 112 should be designated as emergency phone numbers — 911 is currently used in North America, while 112 is standard across the EU and in many other countries worldwide.
911 and 112 are the world's standard emergency numbers, ITU decides

The problem is that countries which already have emergency numbers aren't obliged to use either of these numbers, and even where 112 is used, it often only works from mobile phones.

For example:

• In Australia, dialling 911 doesn't work and dialling 112 from a landline doesn't work. 000 is the only number that works on both landlines and mobiles.
• In New Zealand, dialling 911 doesn't work and dialling 112 from a landline will lead to a recorded message telling you to dial 111. Just what you need in an emergency  when every second counts.
• In Vanuatu, dialling 911 doesn't work and 112 will get you Hospital/Ambulance, but you need to dial 111 for police, and 113 for fire.
• In the United States, only some carriers, including AT&T, will map the number 112 to its emergency number 9-1-1.

Wikipedia's List of emergency telephone numbers gives a more complete picture of the situation.

So there's clearly need for improvement, but why 911 and not 112 ?

As many of you know, I'm an Australian and 911 isn't even one of our emergency numbers, so it's not parochialism.

There are several reasons why I think 911 is the way to go:

1. Thanks to US television series, 911 is much better known as an emergency number. In fact it's so well known that many people would be more likely to remember it than their own country's emergency number. Even for many such as myself, who know their country's emergency number and wouldn't call 911 by mistake, 911 probably comes to mind more easily than their own country's number.
   
   112, on the other hand, just doesn't seem to be as well known. I for example, knew that there was another emergency number for mobile phones in Australia, but would not have been able to say what it was before I looked it up for this article.
   
   
2. This is one thing that the USA seems to have gotten right. 911 is easy to dial deliberately, but probably less likely to be dialled unintentionally, e.g. by a toddler or cat, than 112. It's certainly less likely to be dialled unintentionally than Australia's '000'. I even accidentally dialled '000' one time when opening up a flip phone.
   
   
3. And the clincher: While there are a lot of great Usams, on the whole the USA is probably too arrogant to change its emergency number for the sake of uniformity, even if it would save lives, including Usam lives.

Comments, criticisms, and feedback invited.

Written and posted by Andrew Hicks, aka Andrew the longwinded.
07 September 2020 (AEST)