911 in the UK

[tracymort]

what would happen if you dialled 911 in the UK?

[JudgeJ]

Nothing.

911 is not a recognised code in the UK and no valid telephone numbers begin with those digits. In most cases you will hear "The number you have dialled has not been recognised". 

[kempie]

Don't confuse us further, we already have two numbers for emergency calls; 999 & 112.

[mystress]

Being an Ex~BT Telephonist I can agree with both JudgeJ & kempie!

In the UK we have 999,in Europe they have 112;both function in the UK~although we got very very few Emergency calls on 112,it functions in case tourists from Europe need to dial in an Emergency.So as kempie says please don't confuse us further,with 911!LOL

HOWEVER,there are plans in the pipeline to make each Emergency Service a different(direct) Number such as:~

999 ~ Police

998 ~ Fire

997 ~ Ambulance

996 ~ Coastguard (not many people realise you can get the Coastguard on 999!)

 

So watch this space!

[jakesi]

And 666 for the devil.

[happy_face]

Do you know the reason why they changed from 000 to 112 in Europe?

[ronianna]

I'm living in Sweden at the moment and here it's 112, but 999 also connects.

In answer to happy_face's question, it was changed for two reasons I believe.

1) it's harder to sit on your mobile and inadvertently dial the new 112 combination, as opposed to three consecutive numbers 000 (also children are less likely to press the new combination if playing with the phone).

2) on old bell and 'dial' phones, ' 0' was the last hole on the dial so in an emergency you had to wait for it to recoil all the way back round to the start position for each of the '0's dialled.

I've always believed this to be the reason, but will stand corrected if anyone knows differently.

[KebabMeister]

In Germany it's 110 for Police and 112 for Ambulance or Fire Brigade.

However, and strangely, to call for an Ambulance you must first contact a doctor otherwise an ambulance won't be sent out to you!  It's pretty weird!  Fire Brigade are also used as the ambulance service.  It's all very confusing and I'm still confused about it now!! :)

[happy_face]

Ronianna your second answer is correct. I once did a first aid course in Denmark and the ambulance guy doing explained that they changed it to 112 as dialling 3x0 took to long with the old phones that had dials.

[fly258]

As a BT engineer, 112 is a nightmare. It is possible for an intermittent break in a telepone wire to call 112 by making and breaking in a certain way. Concequently we get quite a few 112 faults raised by the operator service.

[mystress]

I totally agree with fly,

In all my time as a BT Operator 99.9% of 112 calls were faults!

[Flurfl]

Don't forget 112 is the standard GSM emergency number as well. Even if you can't make any other calls (wrong network, no credit etc.) as long as you are in a coverage area of any network dialling 112 will connect to the emegency services in any GSM network in the world.

Australia uses 000