Being a po folk I’ve never lived behind gates, but I’m curious how it works with emergency vehicles. Obviously the Country Club Communities with a guy in a booth 24-7 arn’t a problem.
But what about the middle class apartment complexes with a sliding gate, then everybody gets a key code or access card?and nobody on staff at night. A "Im really a cop button, let me in button’ clearly wouldn’t work. Having every cop have a card or code for every complex won’t be feasible. Having a RF transmitter on each emergency vehicle, and reciever required for each gate seems kinda elegant, but I doubt it, and a freq sniffer could grab it pretty easily.
Do the cops, and paramedics just sit out there on the horn and siren until somebody get up and lets them in?
A buddy of mine lives in one of those gated communities and according to him, there’s an emergency code that the police, etc., have, and presumably the other gated communities have gotten together with the police and adopted a “universal code” so that the police, etc., only need the one code. However, I remember hearing a piece on NPR a number of years ago (mid-90s, I remember it well, as I was reading A Scanner Darkly at the time, which talks about such things, and I thought that it was a weird case of synchronicity) that getting in some of the places was a problem for emergency vehicles, so apparently, at one time it was (and possibly still is) a problem. I know that when the power goes out and the gate’s closed you’re SOL at the place where my buddy lives. There’s no battery power to open the gate, so you’re either stuck inside or stuck outside.
Simple- when I lived in an apartment complex with an electronic gate, the management company informed the local Garda station what the code was, and any time it changed. They apparently have some sort of database for these things, when it calls up the address, it also gives the access code for the gate and door, if there is one.
My apartment complex has gates up front that are activated by a clicker, like an auto remote. You use the same clicker to unlock the pedestrian gates, as well as the workout room and computer lab.
There is no keypad per se. There is, however, a special access telephone that visitors can use to look up residents in the directory and call them. If the resident wants to grant the visitor access, he/she hits the “9” key on their phone, and the two auto traffic gates will open. I suspect that the emergency services either have some kind of scanning device that stores “clicker” codes for each of the various complexes in the area, or else they have a prearranged telephone code for each.
In our community I think they either use a strobe light or siren yelp to activate the gate. When it comes right down to it, our gate is just a piece of wood so they could drive through it if it wouldn’t open.
Also, when the power goes off there is a battery backup that automatically raises the gates and keeps them raised until power is restored.
Our area has a combination of the above for gated communities. Some have an “emergency” code we can use to get in. This info is usually stored in the computer-aided dispatch (CAD) system and is automatically paged out with the address. Sometimes, the caller will give the gate code to dispatch and they’ll tell us, usually via pager or cell phone. And sometimes we sit there and make noise until someone lets us in.
My favorite, though, is the gate that opens when you “tap” it with the ambulance.
The gated community thing is mostly just eyewash anyway.
I bet if you think for about…oh 10 seconds, you will realize that one particular numeric code is embedded in every firefighter and policeman’s brain. Yeah, thats the one.
Using that code may, however, automatically alert a resident manager, sound an alrm, or notify an alarm company, in addition to opening the gate.
These gated communities seem to be uncommon here in New England. There are apartment buildings with locked doors that require access codes but multi-unit or multi-building complexes with a fence around the whole thing? I have never seen one, and no one I know lives in one.
I know there are a few very high end ones on the North and South Shore but that seems to be about it.
One unaddressed aspect of this: if the cops or the firemen really want to get in, they don’t have to worry about anyone calling the cops because they’re disturbing the peace or anything. Come to that, if they really have a reason for wanting in, they probably don’t have to worry much about anyone complaining about any minor (or major) dings to the gate or anything. Um, if they really want in, that gate or door can be replaced later.
“The KNOX-BOX® Rapid Entry System provides non-destructive emergency access to commercial and residential property. More than 9,000 fire departments and government agencies use Knox key boxes (keybox, keyboxes), vaults, cabinets, key switches, padlocks, locking FDC plugs and electronic key retention units for safe and secure rapid entry.”
Not really a gated community, but my sister’s townhouse complex recently blocked off one end of their (private) access road after drivers started to use it as a shortcut to avoid a new “no through traffic” restriction at a nearby major intersection. The city required that the barrier be flimsy enough that an emergency vehicle could break through it if necessary.
The gate automatically closes after your vechicle goes through. If they get right on your bumper they can get through the gate behind you, but the one person that did that to me got their license plate reported.
But ultimately if somebody wants through the gate they’ll get through, either by breaking it down, or somebody will just let them in.
Security gate systems only keep out honest people.
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