Quick off the mark

[Pootle]

Broadly speaking, which emergency service has the fastest response time?

[JudgeJ]

The Fire Service.

The other two "prioritise" their emergency calls and there is a chance that, depending upon their remote interpretation of your predicament, other calls may receive attention before yours. Hence their overall average response time will be higher.

The Fire Service does not do this.

[coyn]

About ten years ago my next door neighbour came home to find he had been burgled, he rang the police and to this day they have not investigated this crime or even bothered to turn up.

Apparently house burglary in todays britain doesn't represent much of a criminal offense.

However you crack some dirtbags skull that you find coming through your daughters bedroom window at night and I will bet you any money the police will be there in under two minutes

[dinsdale]

Nice answer Coyn, unfortunatly it is sad but true!

[WoWo]

It's also true that the fire service don't actually deal with that many fires. My dad was a fireman for 30 odd years and in most stations they only get about one house fire a month.

Most of their work is road traffic accidents, getting people out of lifts and general duties such as going to various buisnesses checking everything is OK.

The way the service is structured in London for example is the areas overlap somewhat, so if a certain station is out on other buisness another station can pick up any emergency jobs, the other station would finish what they are doing and cover for the other station.

[ianess]

To add to WoWo's answer, that's why many "Fire Brigade"s are changing their names to the more appropriate "Fire and Rescue Service".

[Lonnie]

Can't say about the Fire service, but a couple of years ago, I broke my leg, in Ilfod, Essex, jus getting off a bus, the people were great looking after me, but I was there for 45 mins before the police tuned up and said they'd got the message that i'd been run over by the bus, 15 mins after that, the ambulance turned up, saying the same thing, so response times, I guess it all depends if they've finished their cup of tea or not.

[Grunty]

Lonnie - thre are many criticisms that can be levelled at the emergency services, some justified and some not. One of the reasons that the fire service have the best attendance times (by no means the only reason) is that they spend most of their time being instantly available. The police and the ambulances on the other hand spend most of their time dealing with incidents. Elsewhere in Answerbank I said that I had read the personal record of a police officer who was reported on in 1939. He was described as hard working and zealous. The amount of work that he did in that year is done by a modern police officer in four days.

In an ideal world, each police station would be filled with officers waiting to be allocated to jobs. In reality, when they arrive at an incident, there are probably half a dozen other calls awaiting their attention.

[halfadaily]

what about the coastguard? I believe I heard somewhere that they reckon to be in the air within 60 seconds of receiving the call.

[Lonnie]

Grunty, I appreciate and generally agree with what you've said, but I was relating a personal incident, the emergency services had got the message that i'd been run over by a bus, but they still took 45 and 60 minutes to arrive, and in that area, from where I was, their stations were just down the road.

[AllYourBase]

The police catch you instantly if you stray over 30mph past a camera in the middle of nowhere in the middle of the night, but may never catch a car bomber driving at the speed limit towards a busy shopping centre.

[gazzawazza]

Just to clarify, "the fire service spend most of their time being instantly available," even when we are doing other jobs such as home fire safety visits or training we are still "on the run."

The only time an appliance is unavailable is when they are dealing with an incident, or taking part in a major exercise. In this case other pumps will be ordered to standby in that station's area

[Dkeyse]

Why no mention of the Lifeboats? These are volunteers, and the sea is a far more formidable enemy than anything on land!

[ytrewq]

my husband is in the ambulance service and often has to respond to 999 calls over 20 miles away because the local ambulances are all out on other jobs. If people used ambulances for emergencys only it would be alot better. You wouldn't believe what some people think is an emergency!!!(a stubbed toe at lunchtime, called 999 ambulance at midnight!)

[La Diva]

To WOWO who said::
My dad was a fireman for 30 odd years and in most stations they only get about one house fire a month.

In MOST stations? Don't know where he was stationed, but it must have been in the sticks!

Try telling that to a Liverpool, Glasgow, Manchester fireman - any area of the country where there are the kind of folk who come in from the pub dunk, put on a pot of chips and then fall asleep. House fires happen on a regular basis on Friday and Saturday nights. One a month????????