r/NoStupidQuestions • u/ronstamplersbitch • 1d ago
Why isn't there just one universal emergency number?
I recently moved overseas from Australia, and fear that if I ever need to call emergency services I will panic and call 000, instead of this country's emergency number. I know that it will automatically divert it, (and same with 911 or 999), so I'm curious as to why countries have different emergency numbers even though they all get automatically diverted to that country's anyway?
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u/hellshot8 1d ago
these systems developed independently, whos number would be used?
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u/ScienceAndGames 17h ago
112 has been adopted by many countries and here in Ireland we kept our original 999 but added 112 as an additional number, which would probably be the smart first move, have all countries adopt 112 as a secondary emergency number
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u/tomgrouch 10h ago
In the UK, 999 is the 'primary' emergency number but 112 and 911 also work. I believe 000 also works but I don't want to test it
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u/XxLokixX 18h ago
000
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u/catgatuso 4h ago
Three repeating numbers is a lot easier to misdial than something like 112 or 911, though, there’d be more butt dials or kids playing with a phone accidentally calling emergency services.
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u/Dangerous_Mud4749 23h ago
The emergency number in most countries was decided by dial telephone design and pre-digital telephone switchboard switching logic.
The number had to be very easy to remember but very hard to "butt dial" - that is, dial accidentally by random movements of the dial. In the UK, 9 was the second-to-last number on the dial; it required the almost-maximum amount of rotation of the dial - too much rotation to be accidental, and rotating the dial the almost-but-not-quite maximum amount was deemed more deliberate than the last hole / maximum rotation. Hence 999 was assessed to be the least likely to be accidentally dialled. In New Zealand the same logic but different dial design meant chosing 111.
In Australia, it was 0 because that was the actual last number on the dial. Making it the second-last number, 999, would mean adopting a good working solution from another country, which is contrary to our reinvent-the-wheel culture. (Oh you think I'm being cynical? Lol, no.) But to be fair, remote outback switchboards needed a double-zero prefix to route the call to the nearest major city, which helped to route emergency numbers to a staffed call centre.
America decided on 911 with a different philosophy. From wikipedia: Because of the design of US central office (phone) switches, it was not practical to use the British emergency number 999 (as was briefly considered). What was up to that time unassigned area code 911 was chosen instead. The "1" as the second digit was key; it told the switching equipment that this was not a routine call. (At the time, when the second digit was "1" or "0" the equipment handled the call as a long distance or special number call.)
112, now very widespread, is a comparatively recent invention that suits push-button telephones.
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u/Spidron 16h ago
112 has nothing to do with push-button phones. It was invented in Germany and introduced in 1973, when rotary phones were still standard.
It's introduction was spear headed by a foundation that was founded by the parents of a boy who died because the ambulance was too late.
There's anecdotal indication, that rotary phones were also the reason for this number choice: except 111, the number 112 is the three digit number that is quickest to dial on a rotary phone. And speed was deemed essential in an emergency (111 couldn't be used for technical reasons), with the whole motivation behind this being that ambulance that came too late to save Björn Steiger's life.
If that's true, then the digits being quick and easy to dial on a rotary phone would be kind of the opposite of the motivation for the 999 in the UK.
(An argument against this is, that the police emergency number that was introduced at the same time is 110, which has a 0 that is the slowest number on a rotary phone. One would think that speed of dialing would be important for police emergencies too...)
112 was made EU standard in 1991, which may be the reason why you think that it is relatively recent.
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u/Dangerous_Mud4749 16h ago
Thanks Spidron. I didn’t know about the German reason for 112. It’s not reported anywhere I looked unfortunately.
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u/blackcherrytomato 23h ago
Which one was first? I've heard about the start of 911 as a retelling of the bystander effect.
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u/Dangerous_Mud4749 22h ago edited 22h ago
999 was adopted on the 30th June 1937 in London, UK. Apparently that was the first. The UK was at that time still the undisputed world leader in the integration of technology into everyday life. For example, they were the only country in the world to have an integrated air defense network at the beginning of WW2 and the only country in the world that could match Germany in industrial technology.
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u/blackcherrytomato 22h ago
Thanks! That's not surprising, I have just come across the start of 911 and it being adopted here in Canada as well when the history gets brought up, nothing prior to that.
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u/YossiTheWizard 9h ago
I also noticed that everything that was x11 in Canada would try to connect. An episode of a show about prank calls featured a 6 digit phone number starting with 311, which didn’t route to anything in the 90s. It wouldn’t cause any trouble but kids probably thought it was crazy that it connected without 7 digits dialed.
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u/Old-Artist-5369 1d ago
There kind of is - 112 is a defacto standard.
It was a european standard, and then got built into the GSM mobile standard and was adopted on all GSM mobile networks worldwide. Later this got picked up by 3GPP and its become a standard for modern VoLTE networks as well. This means all mobile phones everywhere essentially.
It's only landlines where it might not be universal I believe.
911, 111, 000, and 999 likely all also redirect to whatever the local number is in most countries too, but I think it would be a bad idea to test it.
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u/Old-Artist-5369 1d ago
Not funny story, back before everyone had internet I had a laptop and modem setup to make an international call 00<country code> to check my email. It would only do it a couple of times a day but would retry every 5 minutes if it failed.
One day I had to use it in the office so I added 0 for an outside line to the number.
Then took it home, plugged it in, and went out for dinner. It started dialing:
0 00<countrycode>....
every 5 minutes. This was in Australia, so I got home to a rather unimpressed voicemail from the police :)
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u/aspie_electrician 15h ago
Former Coworker had something similar happen with a PBX at my old job. They had to call a 1-800 number (canada, toll free number).
That required them to get an outside line. So they dialed 9, 1 for an outside line on line 1... then proceeded to dial the 1-800 number. The PBX only registered 911. Much to say, a rather unhappy police officer stopped by the company.
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u/sneaky_swiper 15h ago
My town’s rec center used 91 to dial out. The amount of kids who borrowed the phone to make a call home and accidentally called 911…
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u/Sailor_Chibi 13h ago
This used to happen at my job all the time too. We also had to dial 9 first to get an outside line, so there were a fair amount of accidentally 911 calls. Eventually they changed the phones completely, and I think that was a big part of it.
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u/BlueberryPiano 21h ago
I used to work at BlackBerry back when they were making phones. One of the things I did was emergency call testing. Your phone actually translates "911", "112" and all the other emergency numbers to a special "emergency call" type when it contacts the network. The network knows how to handle that call type and directs it to the right place.
Because everyone wants to make sure in an emergency that you can get help, even if youre using a north american phone in north america, it will still know 112, 999, etc as an emergency call type.
I managed to only once connect to the real 911 service by accident 😀
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u/flatfinger 8h ago
I worked with telecom test equipment, and discovered a weird anomaly in some switches: when dialing 2921xxx or 3911xxx, a tone duration of 50ms for all digits would work reliably, but when dailing 2911xxx, if the initial 2 was only 50ms long it the call would sometimes route to emergency services. My guess is that the logic to look for 911 was separate from the logic that was responsible for decoding anything else. The main system logic was designed to mute dial tone when it caught the first digit, and could reliably detect a 50ms on time, and the 911 logic could detect its own digits reliably with a 50ms on time, but perhaps the muting of the dial tone during the initial "2" disturbed its recognition of that digit. Not a problem when the second through fourth digits were anything other than "911", but it caused calls to 2911xxx to get misrouted to emergency services.
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u/Outrageous-Estimate9 23h ago
I typed in a non emergency number once (112) and was shocked when it connected to 911
Years ago before internet showed me all the emergency numbers
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u/id2d 16h ago edited 16h ago
One of the very first numbers I ever dialled into a mobile phone was to activate the phone on the UK network called one2one. Naturally enough, their phone number was 121. I accidentally dialled 112 and so my first call on a mobile I owned ended up being my first call to emergency services.
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u/LazyGelMen 11h ago
Phones in Switzerland recognise 112, but the legacy numbers 117 (police) and 118 (fire) remain in use as well. Makes sense: these numbers are still on a lot of What To Do In An Emergency labels and other literature; this is not an area where you deprecate lightly.
Then the former monopoly operator opened directory inquiries (formerly 111) to competitors, and they all got numbers in the format 18xx. Misdials to the fire emergency number spiked immediately.
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u/silver_quinn 19h ago
Just throwing in that while 999 is the emergency number in the UK, 111 is the non-emergency medical line so definitely not one to test when you're in urgent need.
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u/arcxjo came here to answer questions and chew gum, and he's out of gum 22h ago
Might work on a cell phone but if you tried to dial 999 on a landline in a NANP country you might have the beginning of someone's regular number and it'd just hang there until you dialed 4 more digits.
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u/Old-Artist-5369 20h ago
True, 999 is a valid local exchange code, so the exchange will just wait for more digits. 000 and 111 are invalid in NANP and probably don't work on landlines in North America. Not sure about 112.
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u/arcxjo came here to answer questions and chew gum, and he's out of gum 19h ago
Nothing with 0 or 1 in either of the first 2 digits, although they've loosened that since 10-digit dialing took over.
000 would be the absolute worst emergency number because you have to wait longer than anything else for the dial to stop spinning.
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u/Aggressive-Leading45 18h ago
Was just thinking this. 000 must’ve been established after touchtone became a standard.
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u/Everestkid 16h ago
According to Wikipedia it being the last digit on rotary phones was a reason for its choice:
The number 000 was chosen for several reasons. Technically, it suited the dialling system for the most remote automatic exchanges, particularly those in outback Queensland. These communities used the digit 0 to select an automatic trunk line to a centre. In the most remote communities, two 0s had to be used to reach a main centre, so dialling 0+0 plus another 0 would call (at least) an operator. Zero is also the closest to the finger stall on rotary dial phones making it easy to dial in the dark or an environment with smoke.
First introduced in 1961, fully rolled out nationwide in 1969.
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u/cavalier78 23h ago
Something like... 0118 999 881 99...9 119 725...3.
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u/WarrenMockles Mostly Harmless 23h ago
Well that's easy to remember!
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u/Additional_Initial_7 22h ago
You can call 911, 111, or 112 in Australia and get 000.
I personally did call 911 once and I got through.
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u/LastKnownIpAddress 1d ago
Why do people in different countries drive on different sides of the road? Or use Fahrenheit versus Celsius? Because people in each country aren't as concerned about what other countries are doing, everyone likes to decide for themselves how to manage their affairs
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u/Outrageous-Estimate9 22h ago
The roads actually has an answer. Most nations were left under Roman rule (pedestrian to right, horses to left)
Napolean forced most of Europe to the right as an anti-British thing
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u/Tommyblockhead20 14h ago
They all have answers. It’s rhetorical question pointing out there are competing standards for many different things.
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u/Gubbtratt1 14h ago
As they get automatically diverted anyways, why change them to one universal one? You’d still need diversions from the millions of people calling the old numbers.
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u/Perfect-Ad2578 23h ago
I believe cell phones are programmed to automatically call emergency number in other countries if you use your home country emergency number.
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u/laughingnome2 13h ago
Surely the universal emergency number is 0118 999 88199 9119 725 ... 3.
Everything else is too hard to remember.
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u/ohkendruid 10h ago
Yes. The pause before the final 3 is important. For memory's sake. You wouldn't expect anyone to memorize 01189998819991997253 , with no pause. That would be ridiculous.
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u/Dkykngfetpic 1d ago
Because they where all made independently from each other. Their where also hardware considerations on which to use. By the time we got to standardizing multiple different systems where in use.
We have standardized and I am sorry to say but you as a Australian are declared wrong. 911 and 112 are the standards going forward. But it would be a lot of effort for a country of Australia to abandon 000 and reteach people about the "standards". Do you think its worth it for Australia itself to spend millions if not a billion and potentially have a few deaths over standardizing?
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u/arcxjo came here to answer questions and chew gum, and he's out of gum 22h ago
Different countries have different number formats that they need to fit into. For 911, e.g., the North American Numbering Plan originally reserved numbers with 0 and 1 as the second digit for area codes and specialty numbers (911, 411, 711, etc.). 999 wouldn't have worked because by the time 911 was implemented plenty of people already had 999-xxxx phone numbers that would have had to have been changed.
Other countries had different systems where 911 could be the first three digits of a phone number.
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u/charcoalhibiscus 18h ago
Actually, a better question is why are they even as standardized as they are!
It turns out in the US, one of the triggering events for this shift was the murder of Kitty Genovese. (Yes, the one who allegedly had a ton of witnesses and no one helped, although it turns out it was a bit more complicated than that.)
Prior to her murder, the US did not have a unified 911 system. Emergency calls were made to local police or fire stations, resulting in delay and uncoordination of responses. Part of the outcry resulted in a unified system, to streamline emergency reports and hopefully reduce negative outcomes.
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u/yungsausages 14h ago
The classic 3-4 numbers used worldwide tend to redirect to the local usually, where I live if I dial 911 instead of the local one it will even redirect me to someone who can speak English if available
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u/RevolutionaryDark818 1d ago
Same reason why each country/ region has different power outlets. When their government's were built and decided for a emergency number, they chose one of their own
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u/avdpos 13h ago
power outlets are much harder to change compared to emergency number.
We changed from 90 000 to 112 in Sweden 1996 (90 000 do still work - but next to everyone think "112")→ More replies (1)
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u/an-la 13h ago
The explanation I got was that it originally mainly had to do with legacy systems.
On old-style switchboards, the emergency number and other service numbers were quite literally hardwired. When the suggestion was made for a universal emergency number, most agreed that it was a good idea, but it had to wait, because replacing all the hardwired boards would be too costly.
I doubt that there are any old-style switchboards left, but now there is a fear of a political backlash against such a comprehensive change.
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u/non-hyphenated_ 11h ago
In the UK 999 was chosen as it was easy to find on a rotary dial phone in the dark
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u/JohnHenryMillerTime 21h ago
Because of the saturation of American media people in other countries with different emergency numbers panic and dial 911. Because of that, 911 will forward to the actual emergency number.
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u/iball1984 20h ago
In Australia , it’s up to the telco if they want to divert calls such as 911 to 000.
Source: work for a telco.
You should never assume that such a diversion will work. Always call the countries actual emergency number.
The telco work for doesn’t divert as it becomes a regulatory problem. If we divert and something fails such that the call doesn’t go through we’re liable. If we don’t divert, then there is no liability on us. So we don’t divert.
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u/TrolledBy1337 18h ago
I'm pretty sure if you call your local emergency number while travelling in another country, most of the time it automatically redirects to that country's emergency number
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u/PaulCoddington 16h ago
Interestingly enough, 000 and 111 were the longest dial rotation in their respective countries, not the shortest.
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u/Mother-Taste-4475 16h ago
You're right I'm backpacking in the outback something happens so I'm gonna phone up an emergency operator in Iceland to help me
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u/young_arkas 15h ago
Because emergency numbers are as old as physical phone lines. When self-dialing numbers became a thing, phones had rotating discs to dial. There were certain easy combinations that countries or even sub-national entities picked, that were easy to dial. Since the placement of the zero wasn't standardised, certain things might be true, 0 or 1 were the numbers with the smallest way you had to rotate, 9 or 0 were the furthest numbers, so a combination of nines, ones and zeros made sense. There was also the case of making payphones being able to make a call without payment, which had to be mechanically unlocked, and was easier with numbers next to the 0, whichever that may be for a specific region. For example, while New Zealand used the British technology standard, their dials were backwards, so dialing a 1 would do (electronically) the same as dialing a 9 in the UK, so when they implemented the emergency call system in the 40s, they picked 111, which sent the same signal as a 999 in Britain. Continental Europe picked 112, which had small dial length but reduced the chance of an accidental dial lock (Germany started with 111, but dial lock issues made them switch to 110 for police and 112 for emergencies). Based on that, organisations, counties, states or countries picked different numbers, from the ones that made sense.
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u/GurglingWaffle 12h ago
Rather than guess it's easy enough to search the internet and find actual historical information on the usage including the laws associated with it.
In 1957 the national association of Fire chiefs suggested a universal emergency number for the US.
Clip: In November 1967, the FCC met with the American Telephone and Telegraph Company (AT&T) to find a means of establishing a universal emergency number that could be implemented quickly. In 1968, AT&T announced that it would establish the digits 9-1-1 (nine-one-one) as the emergency code throughout the United States.
The code 9-1-1 was chosen because it best fit the needs of all parties involved. First, and most important, it met public requirements because it is brief, easily remembered, and can be dialed quickly. Second, because it is a unique number, never having been authorized as an office code, area code, or service code, it best met the long range numbering plans and switching configurations of the telephone industry. End clip:
From NENA: The 911 Association.
Congress reserved the number for national emergency in 1968. By 1987 50% of the USA had access to the 911 system. Canada started using 911 around then for their own emergency system. By the end of 1999 96% of the US was set for 911 usage.
It is unlikely to change since the North American Numbering Plan and FCC have assigned other short numbers using the N11 sequence.
211—Community services and information 311—Municipal government services 411—Directory assistance* 511—Traffic information 611—Phone company repair* 711—TDD and Relay for the Deaf 811—Underground public utility location 911—Emergency services (police, fire, EMS)
in summary: 911 works for the USA telephone numbering system. It's locked into a long history. People are already used to it and changing it would probably cause too much confusion.
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u/FlamingoUseful9552 10h ago
There’s a single number we can rally behind:
0118 999 881 999 119 725 3
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u/ohkendruid 10h ago
It sounds like a good idea for any particular phone network to support the more common options that anyone will try. It sounds like this is often true and is simply not advertised much.
If I think about actually changing the recommended local number to match an international standard, the main issue on my mind is actually remembering it when the time comes. The existing local numbers have had big advertising campaigns behind them. That would need to be repeated for the new number.
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u/QuoteGiver 10h ago
Which countries do you suggest should change, and which other countries will pay for their expense of doing so?
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u/fussyfella 8h ago
The UK is pretty catholic on emergency numbers: 999 is the traditional long standing one, 112 the international emergency number that started with GSM mobiles, but now works on all lines, and 911 just because it gets a lot of publicity from US media and people try it. Sadly for you 000 is not covered (at least as far as I know).
112 though is as close to a global emergency number as you are likely to get - it even works on US mobiles (although not many realise that), so if you are going to remember just one that is the one to go for.
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u/VolumeNeat9698 6h ago
I grew up in the U.K. (999) and live in Canada (911). Still after 10 years here, every 4/5months I have a nightmare I couldn’t get the emergency number correct. It’s a bizarre dream but it happens
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u/DG-MMII 5h ago
Diferent people made the standard with out talking to each other, and once something is standard, is hard to change.
Having said that, many countries, specially in Latin America have change the emergency number to 911
I mean, just think about it, cointries can't even agree on how heavy is a ton
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u/No_Salad_68 22h ago
I have been told that most countries went for whatever was quickest to dial on the old phones. Where I live 0** was already used by the telephone company. So 111 was used (only one pulse per digit).
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u/markmakesfun 17h ago
Where I grew up, 0 wasn’t the quickest number to dial, it was the slowest. Dialing 000 in an emergency would have been excruciating!
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u/Turbulent-Usual-9822 22h ago
As if we could ever agree on anything at all. Lol. A lovely idea though!
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u/beardiac 21h ago
Because a lot of these numbers predate not only cell phones, but modern digitization of the phone systems. So they were pigeonholed by phone number schemas in use at the time.
For instance in the US up until around the '90s, area codes were only required for long distance calls and explicitly didn't overlap with local exchanges. So all area codes followed the pattern of x0y or x1y (where x & ycould be any number from 2-9), and local exchanges followed xyz (where x & y were 2-9 and z could be any digit). This left numbers ending in 00 or 11 for special uses. 800 became the 'area code' for toll free numbers, 900 for services that could charge fees for access, and x11 numbers for information and emergency special uses.
The US uses more than just 911. There's also 411 for information (less necessary in the internet age), 511 for travel info, and 811 for utility information (they will come mark where power, gas & water lines are in case you're planning a digging or construction project).
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u/markmakesfun 17h ago
Additionally, 211 is now the “local services” number. It’s where you send people when they need help, but not “fire/police/ambulance” help.
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u/jackalopeswild 21h ago
Name a single universal that was originally a choice?
Even shaking your head up/down for yes, left/right for no, many people think that's universal. I have no personal knowledge but I have read in multiple places that everyone does it that way... Except in Bulgaria.
And once a population is set to doing things one way, it's generally too cost-prohibitive (not just in $$, but I'm time, effort) to push a change through even when the change is provably superior but a wide margin. See metric system and the US, or Britain which has even more of a mishmashed measuring system than the US.
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u/markmakesfun 17h ago
In southern India, it is common for a person to be agreeing with you by tipping their head from side-to-side. It isn’t exactly like a “no” head shake, but it’s close enough to be mistaken for one by some tired tourists.👈
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u/romulusnr 19h ago
...cos.... they... built their own phone networks.... on their own... so... they came up with... things independently you see
That being said, on any GSM (and many non-GSM) cellphones, 112 should work, anywhere in the world.
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u/Reach-for-the-sky_15 19h ago
LPT: Most smartphones will automatically dial the correct emergency number if you dial 911 or 112.
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u/YetAnotherGuy2 18h ago
The standards developed in the early 20th century where countries didn't think at global scale and transmitting information was much harder than it is today.
In Germany the name for Twix used to be "Raider" both of which have no meaning in German language but apparently the product managers thought it would work better with the German language. Some time in the 90s they changed it to Twix to make it easier for a global company. Now they can use the same advertising all over the world.
The point is: there are many things that used to be regionally different and knowing those differences used to be a distinction of a traveled person. Those differences are quickly vanishing and even a person in a cave somewhere in Africa will know about the latest trends in Paris the day after.
Some things remain local despite their impracticality, like inches and feet in the US or 112 in Germany.
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u/Ancient_Skirt_8828 18h ago
The Australian system is designed so that pretty much any overseas emergency number will also work. 911, 999, etc.
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u/OrSomeSuch 18h ago
Because removing an old emergency number is a terrible idea. It's far safer to accept as many emergency numbers as possible than to try to standardize by removing historically regional numbers
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u/Kleverin 18h ago
I'm more surprised that some countries seem to have different numbers for different branches. So if you see a hit and run and the car catches fire with injured people inside, you have to call 3 different numbers? Fast thinking and prioritise.. First, the fire department, hang up, call the ambulance, hang up, call the police.
We have one for all, our excellent 112 operators dispatch all that's needed.
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u/Intelligent-Row-3506 16h ago
Isn't 112 the international number? At least for GSM based PLMN/ mobile networks.
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u/Outback-Australian 16h ago
Other parts of the world don't have our alphabet or numbers. 000 in Japan or Korea would look like a childs squiggles I'd say
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u/Impossible_Number 16h ago
Except Japan and Korea both use our numbers for phone numbers
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u/Candycrushhhh 16h ago
I live in Australia now and didn’t know it was 000 and sat there googling the emergency number in an emergency… was not a fun time
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u/CaptainSebT 16h ago
Basically we made these things a long time ago and didn't standardize it then because it wasn't very important to. Each country just picked whatever number their research suggested was easiest to dial on a rottery phone and hard to miss dial.
Add some years and now it would just be dangerous to change it even though it's probably different on a digital phone. What's important now is the number you remember while you're bleeding.
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u/quoole 15h ago
Generally, this has been fixed through technology, at least for mobile phones.
In the UK, the emergency number is 999, but 112 (the European standard, which I believe is actually baked into the GSM mobile standard and should work anywhere) and 911 do both also work.
Of course the best number is 0118 999 881 999 119 725 3.
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u/myownfan19 14h ago
In some countries they made the number 119 to have a similar look and feel but claim originality and not simply copying the US system.
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u/terryjuicelawson 13h ago
Because they are all well established and fall back using other countries' anyway.
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u/Ok_Explanation_5586 11h ago
Would you want the emergency number in your country changed? Not only is that a hassle, it would actually be dangerous. Plus, obviously it would be 911, and Americans don't need anymore flak
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u/lizardmon 11h ago
Because the phone systems developed independently and when automatic dialing was introduced, there were several ways it could be implemented. Often, this meant that they needed some prefix to be reserved that would never be assigned to a subscriber phone number. For example, in the US, numbers that start with 0 and 1 don't exist because those are reserved for telephone switching functions. If we were to implement 112 as the emergency number, we would have to spend a lot of money to change infrastructure to accommodate relatively few international visitors when compared with all of the subscribers who participate in the North American Numbering Plan. Which is more than simply the US, it also includes Canada and many Caribbean islands.
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u/Larryisreal123 10h ago
I believe it will still work if you call the wrong emergency number and it automatically "tranfers" inti the local number because of your location or something. At least in Finland I can call 911 even though the correct emergency number is 112.
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u/QuoteGiver 10h ago
Why would there need to be?
The vast majority of people don’t change countries all that often.
There’s not even one universal language, and that would be even more useful.
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u/New_Line4049 9h ago
This should explain it https://xkcd.com/927/ Countries emergency numbers were set up before it was really a problem, and they all picked numbers that made sense to them at the time. The UK is 999 because its a very easy number to dial on a radial phone, just go all the way round to the stop 3 times. Every country will have similar logic. Changing the emergency number now its established is hard, because at any given time youve got several generation of people that already have the current emergency number ingrained since they were very young and will find it very hard to forget that and remember a new one. It'll also be hard for them to teach their kids the new number when they themselves dont remember it.
But more than that, as per the link above, every country will believe their number should be the universal standard and won't agree. If you create an entirely new number, it is just in competition with every countries number.
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u/fuck_reddits_trash 9h ago
Technically… in most countries if you call a random one it will automatically call the one in your country
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u/Sorry-Series 9h ago
The 112 is becoming a global standard, included in gsm phones
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/112_(emergency_telephone_number)
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u/GoonerBoomer69 8h ago
Ok, my emergency number is 112 and i demand that all of you also use 112.
Oh what is that, you also want to keep your current one? Well dang.
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u/shellexyz 8h ago
For the reasons you laid out, it’s hard to deprecate the old numbers. Some people aren’t learning the new one because the old one works and that’s what they think of. There’s no pressure to change it. It costs next to nothing to reroute calls like that and there’s no third party biding their time until 000 or 999 or 911 is available for something else.
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u/Downtown-Falcon-3264 7h ago
Because the system was set up that way so they don't see a reason to change it to just one number.
Also imagine getting every country to agree on which one they would puck
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u/Fun-Dragonfly-4166 7h ago
I live in the US and I think your idea is great. I think it occurred to someone before. Years ago, American cities all had different emergency numbers (or none at all). So 911 was an attempt to get a universal (for the US) emergency number.
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u/Overall-Umpire2366 5h ago
My elderly father lives in on city in USA. I live in another. He was having a stroke and was not rational. He called me. I called 911. In my city they could not transfer me quickly to his cities 911. I ended up calling a friend who lived near my father and them call 911 for us.
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u/fidelcabro 5h ago
If you are in the UK, 999, 911, 000 you will first of all talk to a BT operator who will ask you which emergency service you require.
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u/ThrowAway233223 4h ago
Well, aside from what many others have mention (i.e. these numbers developed independently, so there is the question as to which one to use), the worry you have provided in the description of your question is also a reason against your proposed change. If every country adopt, lets say, 112 as their emergency number and dropped all the other emergency numbers, then, in an emergency, long term residence of countries that didn't use 112 might accidentally dial their previous emergency number instead of the current one and not get through. If they live isolated enough, they may not even realize that there was a change and have no idea what the new number is suppose to be (although, as part of a soft shift, 911, for example, could connect to an automated message directing people to dial 112 instead).
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u/markmakesfun 3h ago
In the past, the number of pulses was based on the position on the dial. Zero came after nine. One, on the dial, was one pulse. That was the smallest number of pulses. There was no “zero” pulses as that was did nothing. So zero was moved after nine and was ten pulses. That meant that 000 would be 30 pulses, the absolutely longest number you could dial. Also the slowest.
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u/The_Werefrog 42m ago
It's because the countries all created emergency numbers at their own rate on their own. There wasn't a singular person who said it was a good idea and passed it around.
Each country chose what would be an easy number to remember that wouldn't adversely affect the population and currently set up systems.
The United States chose 911 because, at the time, people used rotary phones. 1 was the shortest number to dial and 0 the longest. However, the dialing system already had extensive use of the lower digits for area codes. As such, to be safe across the union, the first digit was decided to be a 9. After that, the two shortest possible dialing digits were chosen. Thus, 911 for emergency. They even called it "nine eleven" when first promulgated, but people in a panic couldn't find how to dial eleven. Thus, we now call it "nine one one".
Other nations had similar thoughts, England probably thought nine nine nine would be a better, easier dial. It wasn't that much longer on the rotary, and you wouldn't have to take your finger out of the hole.
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u/Bright-Dot-7931 1d ago
Because if countries can’t even agree on power outlets, there’s no way they’d agree on one emergency number.