Third of 3.5 million calls to emergeny number 112 not an emergency
People who call the emergency number 112 are typically in dangerous situations where every second counts. And yet, over 1 million of the 3.5 million calls to the emergency number last year were not an emergency, NPO Radio 1 program Het Misdaadbureau reported.
A third of last year’s calls were not forwarded to the police, fire brigade, or ambulance service. Instead, the calls were “pocket dials” - people who accidentally made the call, drunk people, and “frequent callers” who often verbally abuse the dispatchers. Many calls also involved situations that could easily be handled via the non-emergency police number.
A growing challenge for the emergency dispatch center ironically comes from safety technology: the eCall system, which has been mandatory in every new car in the European Union since 2018. The system is intended to immediately transmit the location and number of occupants in a car in the event of serious crashes. In practice, it is often activated unintentionally. Last year, three-quarters of the 37,500 eCalls were false alarms.
“Sometimes there is a malfunction in the (automatic) system, but much more often, car users press the button manually because they do not know what the button is for,” 112 specialist Arjan van Geel told the program. “People do not realize that they are connected directly to 112 when they press the button.”
Van Geel advocates for an information campaign to make people aware of how the eCall system works and what it is intended for. “It is important that drivers and passengers know that an automatic or manual eCall immediately establishes a live connection with 112. We hope that people use this consciously, meaning only in emergencies.”
