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Comment by deletes | Hacker News Reader

Charge the call, if the call is justified give a discount of 100%.

Try discussing that with the family of the murder victim Sally Geeson. She wrongly believed an emergency 999 (911 to North Americans) cost money so she did not call when she knew her life was in imminent danger as she had no credit left on her phone:

From http://www.theguardian.com/technology/2006/oct/19/guardianwe...

"...tragic consequences last year when Sally Geeson, a student, was abducted and murdered in Cambridge. Sally, whose phone had run out of call credit, sent a series of texts asking for help to friends, apparently not realising that she could have made a 999 call for free."

What about all the lives lost when it takes first responders up to 8 minutes to respond to a crime because of false positives?

I really believe that this would be a more efficient system on the whole.

You're right, because lives lost due to delays include some rich and therefore worthy people, so a system that saved them and killed more poor people would intrinsically be an improvement. typically blinkered comment that doesn't even admit the possibility of funding the service, employing more responders and attempting to fix the problems. Perhaps it could be funded with this new thing I thought up where it takes money from everyone based on their ability to pay, based on the assumption that everyone is better off in a society that has reliable emergency services.

I intentionally mentioned the charge as a discount, for the purpose of not charging immediately. After the report is investigated and settled the caller either be charged or not. The point is the call could always be made and would be free, only in case of abuse of the number the number would be charged via telephone company. So anyone in danger could call and be sure that he wouldn't pay. The only problem I see here is prepaid phones which could be discarded after use. OR just make calls free and hire more operators and provide training.

This would work if the affected party is making the call. It would still not ensure that the 3rd party caller will get reimbursed. A lot of domestic violence calls are real, yet the victims may not actually confirm that there were, in-fact, abuse (due to shame, fear, whatever) ... the reporter loses money in this case even when he/she just wants to report the crime.

The system would have to be more deeply integrated, once the report is made there is a response( police/ambulance ) and then they report back whether it was real. This would be made automatic via reports which already exist. The problem is how to integrate all these different systems together.

Who decides which calls are "real"? If I call to report erratic driving but the officers never catch the person, is it "real"? What if I report gunfire but they never find the shooter or a dead body? We WANT people to use 911, the answer to fake calls that overwhelm the system is better education, punishment for fake calls, and possibly more funding. Fake calls are not a function of the number of 911 operators or first responders, so you should be able to fund your way out of the problem in the short term if it is really that bad.

How are you going to punish fake calls if you established that you can't determine them. I agree on the last sentence.

You can't necessarily know that a legitimate call is legitimate, but you can know that some calls are fake, though not necessarily until after you've checked out the situation, hence the last sentence my previous post: you may have to fund your way out of the problem until your enhanced deterrent (increased punishment, whatever) can have an impact.

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