20,000 Silent 999 Calls Made Daily

[Canary42]

I'm staggered by this figure (from the article posted below).

Presumably a good proportion are hoaxes - they should be traced if possible and severely punsihed IMHO - it's totally irresponsible and positively EVIL.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-47847735

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[Buenchico]

Most are probably accidental.

Basic mobile phones (i.e. those that aren't smartphones) generally don't have their keypads locked by default. So if someone puts such a phone in their pocket (possibly next to their key ring) it's fairly easy for the keys for a 112 or 999 call to be pressed by accident.

Pets are quite good at dialling 112 or 999 as well. My cats have done it twice!

[Spicerack]

Never heard of this 55 thing before. Police should respond to all 999 calls, imo. There must be many circumstances where the caller can't speak.
Watched a programme the other day, Chris, where a murder suspect accidentally rang 911....and then talked about the murder for 20 minutes, lol.

[aelmpvw]

i suppose that now they've made it public the proportion of hoax calls will rise dramatically

[spathiphyllum]

it will go one way or the other Ael

[sanmac]

I bet a lot of calls are due to people having 999, or 9111, on 'speed dial' which is really easy to 'pocket-dial'. Actually, I can't understand having the emerg number on 'speed-dial'.

[agchristie]

A case I was aware of in my area was a women who had Mental Health problems who would go to a call box and constantly ring the emergency services.

She was going to be prosecuted under the Misuse of Communications Act but instead she was invited into offices to see how the emergency services handled calls and the ramifications of making false ones.

I'm not sure what the outcome was unfortunately!