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I think those people who really needed 911 services and died because the services couldn't get to them would disagree slightly with you if they could and so wou
by joesmo 10y ago
I think those people who really needed 911 services and died because the services couldn't get to them would disagree slightly with you if they could and so would their families. But it's not a crisis; it's just a bunch of people dying. No big deal.
- ZenoArrow 10y agoBroadcasting GPS won't be as effective at improving emergency services compared to having a better distribution of services. As you can see in this thread, dispatchers can already get an approximate location from phone data, that's good enough to start sending someone over to your location straight away. What would really slow them down is if they have to travel a long distance to get to you, that's the problem to fix if you're interested in response times.
- wccrawford 10y agoThis question came up because of a John Olliver segment about this in which he said that emergency services claims they cannot pinpoint 20% (1 in 5!) people via existing systems. He emphasized that number and tried to make a big deal of it, neglecting to mention that it really only matters in situations where the person can't describe their location anyhow. He gave an example of someone who was in a car in a lake, and gave the 911 operator the names of the streets from the nearby sign and they were unable to find one of the streets on their map. The person died. So people are dying from this already. And I'm sure the families are already making as much noise as they can. In the end, the answer is: Despite our crazy headlong rush into technology, not everything is as advanced as we'd like, and there are various reasons why not. From conspiracies to capitalism to good old fashioned privacy, it just isn't there yet.