The Federal Communications Commission just made a motion that requires mobile service providers and third-party apps (like iMessage and Google Hangouts) to make texting 911 available by the end of 2014. What could possibly go wrong?
Of course, the text-to-911 option is a response to the prevalence of texting today and would definitely be of help for those, who are “deaf, hard of hearing, or have speech disabilities” as noted in the FCC’s statement.
However, there’s one small problem: 2% of emergency responders are actually outfitted to receive emergency texts. Micah Singleton at Daily Dot writes:
Only 100 call centers in 16 states—including all of Vermont and Maine—are capable of receiving emergency texts. If you text 911 and the call center in your area isn’t capable of receiving texts, you will get an automatic message that says it’s unavailable, which won’t help much, a point that caused Republican Commissioner Ajit Pa to vote against the rule.
So hopefully the FCC plans on improving this and bringing call centers up to speed tech-wise. Having said that, can you IMAGINE the non-emergency or prank texts that 911 would receive!? I mean 911 already gets calls for the most ridiculous shit, so if they had a texting function, why, emergency services would be up to their necks in drunken booty calls and pizza delivery orders. Dick pics for days! They’d get those awful texts from hookups that fizzled out like “Durrr hey just found this random number in my phone. Who dis lol” (Ugh we all know you know who dis is, go away). Sure they’ll introduce some type of system to prohibit the potential troll influx, but the temptation may prove to be too much for some.
Image via Getty.
