Recently, a viewer reached out, wondering about dialing 112 in an emergency.
Frank Beamon wrote, “I’ve seen on Facebook a few times about dialing 112 in an emergency. Is this legit and what’s the difference between dialing 112 and 911?”
Turns out, this is a common question. Recently, many posts circulated, telling people to dial 112 if they were being pulled over and suspected the person behind them was not a police officer or to let said officer know you will not be pulling over until you reach a safe place. So, we did some checking.
VERDICT: It’s false. Greensboro Police and Greensboro Metro both confirmed, 112 is not an emergency number (at least, not here in America, but we’ll get to that in a second). 13 ON YOUR SIDE also checked locally, to ensure this was the case here too.
Susan Danielson, with GPD, said you should call 911 if you have concerns about the person pulling you over (i.e. if they are in an unmarked car or you would like to see another officer or want to reach a safe location.) Melanie Neal with Guilford Metro explained 911 is the emergency number in the United States, and 112 is an international number.
So, 112 is indeed an emergency number- but for Europe, not America. And, according to our partners at WUSA dialing 112 in the U.S. will get you to 911.
"112 actually gets converted to 911 automatically, so it calls 911 even though you dialed 112," Kent County Sheriff's Deputy Sgt. Joel Roon said.
Why? Some cell phone providers in the U.S. will forward any call to the 112 to the correct 911.
“Some carriers automatically translate the 112 number, which is the emergency number in many European countries to 911 here in the US. Some do not. It is a wireless carrier’s business decision to do that on their network. The Office of Unified Communications, which provides 911 service in the District of Columbia has no ability to track calls from any other number other than 911 because it is converted at the carrier network level. That’s why we urge everyone in need of emergency services to call 911 directly," said Alan Etter with Office of Unified Communication.
So, bottom line. If you have an emergency (and you’re in America), just dial 911.
"112 is a little risky because there's a chance you dial 112, and your cell network doesn't recognize that as an emergency number and the call won't go through," Roon said. "So you're always better calling 911 in the United States."
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