How To Avoid Being A 911 'Butt-Dialer' Nuisance

Every day, "butt-dialers" are flooding 911 emergency centers in the United States and Canada with hundreds of phone calls. The accidental calls aren't only embarrassing to those who make them, nevertheless costly to the emergency response units strapped for cash in these economic times.

The number of butt calls to 911 centers is sobering

The number of "butt calls" to 911 centers is sobering. In Toronto, Ontario, Canada, 10 percent of all 911 calls -- some 300 a day -- are accidental calls from cell phones.

Similar numbers are found in the United States. In Nebraska, to illustrate, 3000 of the 35,000 911 calls received in one month alone in Douglas County are butt-calls. Pottawattamie County officials peg the rate of accidental calls in their jurisdiction even higher-15 to 20 percent of all traffic.

While not all accidental calls are butt-calls --- even though some are made by buttheads, like the wasted Illinois lad who phoned 911 five times seeking customer support for his iPhone -- an overwhelming number of them are. In Evanston, Illinois, for instance, emergency responders estimate that 20 percent of their 911 calls are accidental and 90 percent of the accidentals are butt-calls.

The harm in these calls?

What's the harm in these calls? For openers, they consume an operator's time, time that could be spent on real emergencies. Operators spend an average of two to three minutes on a butt-call. That's just to determine that the call may be accidental. Afterwards that, they may spend more time redialing the number of the call to make sure it as a matter of fact wasn't an emergency.

Although butt-calls have helped catch criminals from place to place -- as when a Gainesville, Georgia man made a 911 butt-call while a drug deal before this year -- however for the most part they're just a nuisance. How can you avoid them? Here are some ways.

The easiest method to avoid butt-calls is

The easiest method to avoid butt-calls is by locking your smartphone's home screen. On an iPhone, that's done by turning your phone off by pressing a button on top of the handset afterwards using it. A similar button is available for users of Android phones.

Some phones feature 911 override. That means the phone will dial 911 even if the home screen is locked. In those cases you should disable that feature.

The password feature of your phone

Another precaution is to enable the password feature of your phone. That way, it won't make calls unless you enter your password, something that can't be done accidentally. But, some phones that are password-protected will accept voice commands even when they're password protected, a feature that can be disabled.

In addition, some phones may remain active for as long as 60 seconds during they're waiting for a password. While that time, a butt-call may be made.

Holster can as well avert butt-calls

Carrying your phone in a holster can as well avert butt-calls, too. You'll want a holster that protects the front of your phone, although. If the front is exposed, as things are in some Ballistic cases, the opportunity of making a butt-call remains.

Apps are available to prevent butt-calling. In the Android Market, to illustrate, there's a program called Call Confirm that's designed to address the problem. It's received high marks from some 9500 users at the site, 4.7 out of a possible five.

Of course, if you have an old-fashioned clamshell phone, you won't have to worry about butt-calls because the keypad is protected from contact with objects by the top of the handset.