Blame it on the technology.
Council is set to discuss a notice of motion today from Ward 13 Ald. Diane Colley-Urquhart calling for an extensive report on 5,000 monthly 911 dropped calls, but Ward 8 Ald. John Mar wonders if it’s necessary.
“I will hear the motion out, but I believe that many of the dropped calls are simply because of technology, not a misuse of the system,” Mar said yesterday.
Mar sits on the police commission with Colley-Urquhart.
Mar said for example, people with BlackBerries can often hit the emergency call button without even knowing it.
“There are over a million people in Calgary, and a hundred or two hundred thousand BlackBerries, so that can really add up. My take on it is that it’s simply technology.”
The city receives about 450,000 911 calls a year and the public safety communications centre says about 10 per cent of those are hang-ups.
Repeated attempts for comment to Colley-Urquhart went unanswered.
