SAN FRANCISCO, CALIFORNIA — People calling 911 from cell phones are overwhelming California’s 911 system, resulting in lengthy waits and hundreds of thousands of lost calls, the Los Angeles Times reported today.
A review by the Times found that half of the state’s CHP dispatch centers are not meeting national standards. The California Highway Patrol handles nearly three quarters of all emergency wireless calls.
State officials say 911 calls should be picked up in less than 10 seconds, but at San Francisco’s CHP dispatch center, waits averaged nearly a minute. The longest waits were an average of 27 minutes in the Los Angeles area, 16 minutes in the Bay Area, and 47 minutes in the Ventura area.
According to the Times, staffing shortages and the fact that the majority of 911 calls come from cell phones are main contributors to the problem. Also, a surge in calls is common when there’s a traffic accident.
State officials said another factor is that some people often dial 911 by mistake, or when there is not an emergency. There were more than eight million wireless calls to the state’s 911 centers last year, 10 times the number of calls in 1990.
