Hacker News Reader

Last I heard, calling 911 from a mobile phone in CA tends to connect you to California Highway Patrol, who usually forward your call to a more local dispatcher. Some people recommend saving the emergency number for your local police department so you can skip that step.

View on HN

This is how it works in most areas. Mobile calls to 911 will go to the PSAP for a relatively large region, who will triage the call and if your address is in an area served by a more local PSAP, they will add a calltaker from the local PSAP to the line and transfer the call to them.

It's probably best to just stick with 911. That's what calltakers are used to, and trying to route around 911 means you won't get the advantages built into that system (like priority handling, mapping, etc).

Reply on news.ycombinator.com