Posted on 02/10/2018 12:16:04 PM PST by bgill
A Texas law is becoming a national one. Three years after Governor Greg Abbott signed it in Texas, Kari's Law made its way through Congress. The law will protect families by making 911 more accessible in buildings with multiple phone lines. It was set in motion after Austin-born Kari Hunt's murder in 2013. When making a call from a hotel, office building or school you usually have to dial "9" first to get an outside line, but would you remember that in an emergency? It's a road block children aren't taught about and that extra "9" stopped a little girl from getting potentially life-saving help for her mom...Kari's Law is headed to the president's desk for final approval. After that buildings will have two years to make sure 911 calls 911 without an extra "9" needed.
(Excerpt) Read more at cbsaustin.com ...
Taught our kids to dial 911 as soon as they could read numbers but never thought about phones that required a number to get an outside line.
Some systems require a “7” to get an outside line......at least some used to.......
Ouch, do you know how many PBX systems there on in the States? And almost every one of them have to be reprogrammed. Some of them will be simple, but someone will have to come out and touch every single one of them to verify this.
Designer Laws, usually attached to a girl's name, are a regrettable trend. They rely on emotional blackmail of both citizens and legislators. There are far too many laws on the books of cities, states and the federal government as it is. Monuments belong in cemeteries.
The law will protect families
An assertion made without proof. And why only families? What about individuals? What about roommates who are merely friends or acquaintances? Mentioning families is more emotional blackmail.
By making 911 more accessible in buildings with multiple phone lines
But 911 is not being made 'more accessible' (another media cliche). This does nothing to increase the availability of 911 operators or responders - not that such a thing was needed.
Their oldest daughter called 911 for help but all of the calls failed because the phone required her to dial a "9" first. It's a tragedy Kari's family never wants to see happen again.
Um, isn't the 'tragedy' the attack on Kari Hunt by her husband? A failure to successfully call for help is unfortunate but they're putting the cart before the horse here.
After that buildings will have two years to make sure 911 calls 911 without an extra "9" needed.
As before, abysmal writing. Buildings will have two years? Buildings are inanimate objects. They couldn't comply even if they wanted to. Because they are inanimate objects.
With or without Melanie Torre's hacktastic prose, this law is the worst sort of control freakery with the usual fig leaf of DO SOMETHING! And, as usual, government's virtue signaling costs them nothing but compliance by landlords et al will be cumbersome, potentially expensive and almost certainly inconsequential.
And some require an “8”
This means no more hotel room number 911.
I used to avoid rooms ending in 11 especially 411 as I had on a couple of occasions been awaken by 411 calls in the night. Now I just unplug the hotel phone.
“Some of them will be simple, but someone will have to come out and touch every single one of them to verify this.”
modern pbx’s (for at least the last 15 years) are nothing more than general purpose computers with special line cards as peripherals. upgrading their code is simple as they are all inherently connected to the internet and maintenance is already done remotely anyway. software upgrades are as simple as upgrading the code on a small home office router ...
“Some of them will be simple, but someone will have to come out and touch every single one of them to verify this.”
= = = = = = = = = = =
Notice all these ‘emergency’ changes are given 6 mos to a year to change.
While I realize things usually can’t be done overnight but if eating ‘Popcorn’ can kill all of us, why are they allowed to sell it for another year...
I guess an exception to this ‘rule’ is when they raise gasoline prices because a pipe line broke, the price is basically changed before a crew is dispatched to clean up the mess.
We are told it is an emergency measure and will restored(unless they can come up with another reason).
SO when restored etc and back to normal we ‘ask’ why a week to change back and are told ‘we have to use up what was produced during the break etc etc’....How come setting the price back doesn’t have the same urgency as raising it?
As long as we ALL buy into that .xxx9 gas price they know we are not ‘serious’....Naturally -for some odd reason- we call 1.359 per gallon 1.35....Just give ME that extra .xxx9 per gallon pumped and you will NEVER hear from me again.
When calling anywhere to complain or whatever I always ask to speak to the guy that gets the last penny out of every dollar. After the pause you just say...That person is giving everyone else in the world 99 cents out of the dollar all they are interested in is that last penny which is THEIRS so you best not screw with it.
Stop the madness.
That dial 9 business never occurred to me either.
Another 911 story I heard was a child that was told to dial nine-eleven in an emergency and when one arose he was stumped because there was no eleven on the phone.
..
The problem comes in multi-floor buildings and campus environments with Voice over IP systems. If you are in building 314 and the company is listed as building 100 you could be dead by the time the first responders find you if the company doesn't have E911 programmed properly. And a lot of companies don't.
Either it’s blackmail — or it’s a shame is a shame, and this is one of the few remaining ways that we can recognize a shame, by putting a name upon it.
And that doesn’t excuse not looking at content. After all, even Kari wouldn’t want ineffectual or counterproductive nonsense associated with her name.
It’s going to look different to do this on a “punch 9 to get out” system than on a “punch 7 to get out” system.
A middle approach might be to require large stickers that explain how to call 911 on phones where it won’t work directly. And maybe some kind of tax allowance to procure systems where dialing 911 will work directly.
Recognizing a shame is and should be a far cry from adding yet another straw of government coercion to the camel’s back under the rubric of compassion.
What is happening to good old Free Republic these days? It seems that the principle of limited government is getting it in the neck recently on a variety of topics.
How would we know what Kari wants or doesn’t want? She is, unfortunately, deceased.
The world has enough silly, unsightly finger-wagging stickers on everything from motor vehicles to ladders. Ironically, the lawyers’ and the nanny state’s zeal for ‘safety’ has many in society ignoring any and all stickers due to their ubiquity and apocalyptic worst-case fearmongering. They are mere visual noise these days.
The story, the law and the sentiment behind them also overlook the fact that a large portion, possibly even a majority, of society (including children) are using mobiles phones primarily or exclusivelywhich further obviates this law.
I put in a VOIP system for a Catholic school. The second week of school, they had the sherriffs ou5 3 times, because on the old system you dialed 9, 911 and on the new system you could dial that, or just 911. The sheriff was going to find them $500 for any future mis dials as the sheriff has to send someone out regardless. They asked us to put it back to the old way. No more mis dials.
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