BIKEPGH MESSAGE BOARD ARCHIVE

Wow good for you! I probably would have yelled at the driver also. Glad everyone is ok

Good for you to get involved!

Question: was the guy's voice distinctive? The behavior and car sounds like someone who threatened me (after I called him an adam's apple) would have been last June at the corner of Virginia & Wyoming on Mt Wash. (I posted about it at the time, he even threatened to follow me home....)

The guy that threatened me had a really distinctive raspy/froggy voice... which I heard again a few weeks later, again on Mt Washington. I was leaving the firework festivities, and I heard him freak out on a pedestrian who had done something wrong... all he kept saying was "You have to WAIT, You have to WAAAIIITTTTT!!!!" (Because as my Mom always says, if you argue louder than the other person, you win the argument.)

Anyway, if it is the same guy, he needs more than a fine. He needs an anger management course, a safe driving course, and some serious, serious therapy.

We should buy him a bike.

Huh. So the police CAN issue tickets for infractions they didn't witness. Or maybe that's only in Carrick.

@myddrin Yeah he had a deep raspy/booming voice. He said "Do you know who you are talking to?" quite a few times too, between the threats to f**k me up. He was big like a linebacker, fit, with a square jaw. He was dressed very nicely, driving a fancy car, and the cashier at the gas station said he bought a few lottery tickets and payed with quarters. WTF

Something in the back of my head is saying "steroids". I don't know if that is something the police are able to check for if there is a suspicion, but they can cause that exact kind of behaviour.

Sounds like the same guy, although he was not dressed particularly well when I saw him. (Ratty t-shirt & jeans.) He could just have been on his way to something (a date?) when you saw him.

@edmonds59, its quite possible. He was big enough that I thought he might be a bencher for the Steelers.

i'm always amazed at people who ask "do you know who you're talking to?" my knee jerk response is "why are you asking me? don't you know who you are? amnesia is a medical condition..." Maybe I am Amelia Badelia.

People who are truly impressive and important never have to ask that question.

Glad you came through the ordeal unscathed. My guess is the cops reluctant to issue citations for things they didn't see is, if the guy gets a ticket in the mail, then contests it, the cop still has to show up in court to say "I didn't see it, these witnesses said this...". It comes down to a he-said-she-said but none of the he/she's are "authorities" so it could end up being a waste of everybody's time. Not advocating it, just looking for a rational, logical explination other than laziness or jerkiness.

Yeah, after I had a confrontation with a driver, the cop told me what a bad idea it was to approach him because the guy could have shot me. When this "castle doctrine" crap goes through, it will make it that much easier for someone to do so "legally".

Definitely serendipitous that the lady ended up in the gas station - otherwise I suspect it would have gone much differently with the cop. Sucks that you had to lose an hour out of your day to deal with this idiot...

As far as citations for something the police didn't witness, it might help to have multiple witness that are not connected to each other. The clerk the old lady and Marko provide what appears to be 3 independent witnesses. It could be different if the cop showed up and it was three friends who were together when the incident happened.

You have to figure, in this case, if the guy goes to court and the witnesses do, he'll be hosed.

I don't want this guy on a bike. It would be nice, of course, if he lost his license and couldn't drive, but still. I don't want him on a bike.

Good job, Marko!

Aye, good job.

Also good job for honking guy.

It shows he was driving recklessly (like, I might hit this lady, oh well) and not just carelessly (I didn't see the lady) (state of mind is important)

Marko, you're awesome.

Traffic safety badge:

(blush)

Three cheers for Marko!

Let's bring it back to the question: What are your experiences with 911? I've called 911 on a handful of occasions and I'd say that when it's been a police matter approximately 3 out of 5 times they have taken a very long time to arrive. On the other hand when I called 911 a a month ago after I smelled natural gas coming from my basement, the fire department showed up within 5 minutes.

I've called 911 twice, once for a medical issue (fire truck arrived in a few minutes, ambulance right after) and once to report ongoing vandalism (police arrived in a few minutes). No complaints here.

scott, i've had pretty much the same results as you.

The firemen are really fast and efficient once on the scene.

Police, depends on how busy they are at the moment and if a crime is in progress, & what kind of crime. Usually takes at least 20 minutes. I've called during three crimes-in-progress around my house (a break in, stripping a car, and a severely drunk person leaving a bar and driving away with a flat tire). They were way too late in each case.

They PGH police I've found to be mostly civil to deal with (unlike W'burg, which I've mentioned in a different thread).

I have not had to make any calls related to bicycling.

Riding the Eliza Furnace Trail I came upon about half a dozen kids tagging. I called 911. I sat on a bench away from the kids because, in all honesty, I wanted to see what happened when the cops rolled up. If the cops rolled up. After a while I called back to provide better descriptions of the kids and indicate that they were still there. I was told that city police would not be dispatched because the parkway abutments are state property. Not the city's responsibility.

911 doesn't dispatch to the state police? How about the county police? I know they dispatch to the Port Authority police. I'm pretty sure they also dispatch to the Pitt police. That sounds fishy.

@Lyle - Don't know how PA operates, but I know that in NY 911 dispatches calls all over.

My Mom's house had a fire in 1989 and she called 911. Since our area wasn't covered by 911 at the time, she ended up at a dispatch office in Albany, NY... about 150 miles to the SE. The operator in Albany figured out the number to call [which she did by yelling out 'Anyone know the phone number for the FD in Burke, NY?']. We heard the fire siren start while she was still on the phone with Mom.

That was in '89. In 2011, transferring to the state police should be much easier.

I once called 911 about two guys that came out of a bar, then drunkenly attacked and broke a sapling tree on walnut street. They got into an SUV and drove.

I called 911. I gave a description and the licence number to the dispatcher. She read the wrong number back to me. I gave it to her again. She got my name and home phone, before telling me that the plate number did not correspond with a silver Jeep Wagoneer. She took her time when I asked her to read the number back to me (wrong again). I gave her the number a third time and asked her to read it back to me. Instead, she took much longer to tell me that "the plate number doesn't correspond to..." There was a very long pause when I asked her to read the number back to me and I just hung up.

That tree was alive before those drunk jerks broke it - and it couldn't have been all that cheap.

If the dispatchers don't consider your call important, they will jerk you around.

Occasionally they get in trouble for this, like when they scolded a 4 year-old who called to say her mother collapsed. Most of the time, they get away with it.

Or when that guy died last winter...

There should be a random review of the recorded calls, just like every fortune 1000 company does with its customer service lines.

I'm not necessarily sure that was the dispatchers fault. I recall two ambulances came close by, but were like "Snow, we can't get there, oh well" Complicated by the fact that the system at the time didn't recognize multiple calls for the same case, which didn't help them realize "Hey, this might be a problem" Lots of problems really, wonder if they actually ever got around to solving any of them

"Hey, we're not a cab service" -- that's the dispatcher's fault.

Not being able to get there, okay, that's not the dispatcher's fault. Being an ass about it, is.

I called 911 one time because my friends and I were drunk and lost, and the busses weren't running (which was our way home). 3 college girls drunk and lost and they say "we're not a cab service". ok, i understand that, but im lost and scared for my life with no way to get home, a little help would have went a long way.

I was in a minor car accident and I called 911 because the guy I hit was a total douche bag to me. firemen were there in minutes.

I call 911 at work for being MFed my a drunk man and they never show.

I call 911 for a bum yelling at customers. No one shows.

I call 911 because someone stole a painting off the wall. the cops show up over an hour later. they ask all of their questions trying so hard not to laugh. "so the picture is of a dog eating ice cream?"

Not such good experiences on my end.

I think one of the problems with 911 is that if you call a precinct with a non emergency (like a stolen painting), they tell you to call 911, since they (claim to) have no way of contacting officers without 911 which is the only dispatch service. The 911 dispatchers are prepared to save gunshot victims and kidnapped children. Their perspective could be understandably skewed.

I've called twice since leaving the city, and Penn Hills police both times were very nice to me. What worked the best was when we set up a window of time for them to stop by - I don't remember if this was through the dispatcher (unlikely) or through a phone call from an officer later.

It might help that I started both interactions with "this is not an emergency, but I need to file a report". Bikelove, maybe if you call for verbal assault and ask to file a report to document verbal assault (is that the official word for it?), someone would show up - don't say who did it, don't say what they said, just tell them what you need from them. It gives clear and precise directions without room for interpretation by the officers or dispatcher - "file report". Rather than leaving them wondering if you want them to intervene ("if we wait, it will fix itself") or some other nebulous action. "Have an officer stop by to take my statement" Or call you, so you get an actual officer's attention as a human being.

The problem with you not getting an officer to come and visit you is that those are two incidents that would go towards "need more officers" budget statistics that aren't there. They are real issues, keeping public order. If the cops can't deal with them, they need more cops or more efficient cops. Proving that without a paper trail to beurocrats is impossible.

The system does not work the way anybody wants it to. It needs at least repair and probably overhaul.

ej +1

But shouldnt the dispatcher be trained to ask the caller what they need? a simple 'do you need a cop ASAP or are you looking to file a report' would probably solve a lot of issues. In my case I was told a car was on its way. I said "so I should wait for the officer" and the dispatcher said yes. The officer came quickly after my second call forty minutes later, so I wonder if one was really dispatched after the first call?

The 911 operators probably answer more non-emergency calls than true emergency calls, and the true emergencies probaly generate multiple calls (ie a traffic accident with multiple people calling about the same wreck). But 911 has operated for a long time, they should know how to triage calls by now and what questions should be asked. It's difficult for sure, but so are a lot of other jobs.

Marko, the dispatcher may have put out a call, and may have received a response. The initial responding officer may have gotten pulled in on a more emergent call or had to wait until after they were done with whatever task they had at hand, I don't know the protocol or if they followed it, but I can think of any number of things that would slow them down even if they did follow a logical protocol.

The more I think about it, the more I think that maybe having a non-emergency police response number, or a way of transferring people to a non-emergency line from 911, might be a potential solution. That way emergent situations can be segregated from urgent situations and delt with accordingly. The operators would then have the liesure to deal with people on the phone, and could maybe provide a car number or office as dispatched or even just a time window, since the non-emergency caller could stay on the line while the call was dispatched, and feedback could happen instantly without fear of a gunshot victim being put on hold while they find an officer to write down a stolen bicycle's description.

That phone number used to exist, it was called the Police. With computers and communications being what they are now, the logistics involved in parallel systems should be easily overcome, leaving only the budget issues.

It used to be the case that I could call 911 for an emergency or call the old before-we-had-911-the-number-that-rang-on-the-PD-desk number. Now, when I call the direct line, I automatically get transferred to 911 anyway.

I called the Zone 4 office directly to report some crap that was stolen out of my garage. They told me my options were to call 911 or stop by and file a report in person. Never did get around to that.

Our local Police tell anyone to just call 911 regardless. They don't even answer the phone at the station.

i really feel like there needs to be something in the middle of 311 and 911.

611?

This song comes to mind.

I was jokingly thinking that 611 would be the information number for the devil, but then I discovered that "Many wireless phone providers also use 611 or *611 as a general customer service access number". So, it is.