"Tim+" wrote in message
...
ARW wrote:
Basically between two villages. No houses, no pubs nothing (apart from a
field on fire).
You know the names of the villages and that is all.
Could the phone operator not work it out?
Optimist! Ive found trying to give positions to emergency services an
incredibly frustrating experience. The main problem being that theyve not
heard of the internet and search engines. Also, it takes an age to get
through to anyone who can understand grid references or any normal system
of identifying position that doesnt involve street names and house
numbers.
€śWhat three words€ť seems like a nice idea but I dont hold out much hope
of
any operator understanding the idea.
https://what3words.com/daring.lion.race
When I had to report a crash on the opposite carriageway of the M1 late at
night, I used the "M1 A 123.4" emergency location sign, but said "Accident
is on the opposite B carriageway, roughly opposite this sign". The operator
wanted to know the f-ing postcode! When I couldn't give one (random
locations on motorways don't have postcodes) she asked what junction or
service station I had last passed. I'd no idea: I was somewhere in the
middle of my journey, a long way from the junctions I'd joined at and was
planning to leave it, so my location was "somewhere in between". I could
give a very rough idea, but no more than that.
I was rather horrified that the police 999 operator couldn't handle the
information on the "M1 A 123.4" sign, because they are there for this very
purpose: giving a location in the event of an emergency. When I got home I
emailed the police force for that area to report the problem because there
was clearly a training issue. I had a reply saying that they'd found the
recording of my call and agreed that I had been very precise and very
unambiguous and had given all the information that the operator *should*
have needed. The control room had identified that more training was
needed...
On a previous occasion I had to give my postcode, and the operator had
difficulty understanding the radio phonetic alphabet, which was an even
worse deficiency of training. She asked me to give the letters their normal
names, and then we had the expected "is that P or B" scenario that the
phonetic alphabet is designed to avoid.