Why not have a national non emergency/near emergency short number as an alternative to 911 Emergency. Perhaps something easy to remember like 999. This number would be used to report things like traffic accidents where both parties are fine but a police car needs to come to the scene. Also it could be used to report a suspicious vehicle...someone loitering...things that don't involve life and death and the need for immediate response. Being put on hold by 911 when someone is breaking into your house while the person ahead of you is reporting a cat in a tree is a real bummer. This just seems like a common sense initiative that states should implement. I've spoken to a couple of 911 operators who have told me that they get an enormous amount of non emergency calls which delay them form doing their jobs. Someone reporting a loud neghbor is not an emergency that requires calling 911 but people don't want to look in the phone book to find the police non emergency number so they call 911. The FCC would probably have to give its blessing in order for individual states to get this going but it is an initiative that is worth pursuing.

This idea was originally posted by SRINATH13 on the <a href="www.forbes.com>forbes.com Why Not? forum.

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