By EMS1 Staff
SAN FRANCISCO — San Francisco’s Department of Emergency Management recently launched a campaign to reduce unintentional 911 calls.
Mission Local reported that the “Make the Right Call” campaign on both social media and advertisements around the city urges people to keep their phones locked so they cannot make calls from inside their pockets, and adds that if an accidental call does occur, the caller should stay on the line.
“A large portion are, for lack of a better word, ‘butt dials,’” SFDEM director of external affairs Francis Zamora said about the increasing number of 911 calls.
Zamora said around 30 percent of San Francisco 911 calls are accidental, and dispatchers spent around 5,000 hours in 2016 calling people back.
“That’s time that could be spent answering real 911 calls,” he said, “and getting to people who have police, fire or medical emergencies.”
Aside from accidental dials, the campaign also reminds people that 911 is for emergencies that are currently happening, and to call 311 for emergencies that have already occurred, such as vehicle break-ins and reporting graffiti.
Zamora hopes to keep the campaign going indefinitely.
“This shouldn’t be a one-time effort,” he said. “We need to sustain this. Behavior change doesn’t happen in one year.”