Sos button.

[flyingpigvrs]

Had cause to push this last night as I was driving home from work at 2am. 

 

Drunken idiot walking in lane 1 of the motorway which was coned off, throwing cones Into the live lanes. 

 

My experience of the service is not great. 

 

It was answered by a friendly gentleman who asked what the emergency was.  I told him what id seen and asked him to connect me with the police......I was put on hold!! For close to 5 minutes when I was then put on a conference call with the police. 

 

Lesson learnt, if you're able to, dialling 999 is much faster in my opinion. 

 

Anyone else had any experiences with it? 

[FelisBengalensis]

Probably used 101 instead of 999 in case they get clobbered for ‘misdirecting’ the call at the SOS call centre.  Could well be worth flagging this to the force concerned to make sure a message gets back to the supplier contact centre about classification of calls.

 

If life and limb in immediate danger then it should be a 999 call only.

 

Some Motorway Control Centres are now run by the Highways Agency - and that may have contributed to the delays.  Not good though.

[flyingpigvrs]

16 hours ago, FelisBengalensis said:

Probably used 101 instead of 999 in case they get clobbered for ‘misdirecting’ the call at the SOS call centre.  Could well be worth flagging this to the force concerned to make sure a message gets back to the supplier contact centre about classification of calls.

 

If life and limb in immediate danger then it should be a 999 call only.

 

Some Motorway Control Centres are now run by the Highways Agency - and that may have contributed to the delays.  Not good though.

That was my initial thought, however I checked the log yesterday (I'm in the job) and it was received as a 999 call at the police control room.

 

The system obviously has major benefits in the circumstances of an accident where the driver is unable to contact emergency services. But used as a method of contacting them in an emergency it just seems you're adding a middle man into the equation which slows things down.

 

(the only real plus was the police knew exactly where I was when I activated it)