C’mon, you don’t think a stolen license plate is an emergency? I’d sure as hell think it is, and for the same reasons as Soapbox Monkey enumerated. I’d label anybody who gave him grief for calling 911 as being more anal than is common.
Ok, I’m going to do everyone who can text a huge favor, and I feel like spreading joy because I can no longer take advantage of this (for the time being) and it makes me sad. Google is awesome, and they have set up an SMS service for people who don’t have internet on their phones. You basically text to GOOGL [46645] (the website says GOOGLE, but it always worked for me without the terminal E) and they text you back, and all it costs is the regular price of a text message (if the info you request is too long for 1 text, they send you multiple). Google doesn’t charge a thing. For me, who used to have 400 texts a month for like $4, this was fantastic. You can go to the site and play with the functions, but following is a list of things I used it for most:
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phone numbers. Text “police, kalamazoo MD” and they send you local police listings for the area. It works with names/personal listings, and also with businesses. And you don’t have to know the business name specifically, eg “chinese, east nowhere, IA” and it returns several listings of Chinese restaurants.
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weather. “weather, [your zip code/city here]” gives you a brief 3 day forecast
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directions. “45 this street, bangor ME to 54 that street, los angeles, CA” gives you driving directions
If they ever started charging for this service I would pay it in a second. I just wish I could use it.
You’re all welcome.
Had my rear plate stolen a couple of months ago. I was playing music at a club and at the end of the night, drove home (about 20 miles) before I noticed they were gone. I called the non-emergency number and they sent an officer out immediately to take a report. He said it was a pretty common occurrence. He advised me to remove the front plate before going to DMV, otherwise I would risk being pulled over at gunpoint.
The next day, I got new plates and also opted for the allen wrench-type bolts. All in all, it was a big fucking hassle.
My rear plate was stolen here in California. Probably the thief wanted the yearly registration sticker that goes on that plate.
Many cars cannot pass the smog test and get registered. So the owners steal the whole rear plate so they can, without being rushed by the fear of being spotted, peel the sticker off without ripping it, at their leisure.
Me and most of my friends make cuts on the sticker with a razor blade so it cannot be peeled off in one piece.
Huh? Who would pull you over at gunpoint? Someone mugging you for your remaining plate, or cops? If a mugger, why more likely to get mugged if you only have one plate? And if a cop, why would they pull you over for having one plate, but not for having none?
Cops, I assume, thinking this was the plate thief. That license plate was registered as stolen at that point, after all.
Here in my city, when you call the police non-emergency number it rings in to dispatch, just like a 911 call. FYI. SO…if the cop or dispatch operator didn’t chastise him for calling 911 I don’t think it’s that big of a deal. YMMV.
Yeah, I’d agree. Last time I called the police for a non-urgent situation I looked the number up in the book, thinking “911 is for emergencies and this isn’t!” And the person who answered the phone told me to call 911 instead.
I once had to call 911 three times within 24 hours. I pulled into my driveway and ran over the faucet, so I had to call the city to get them to turn the water off so I could fix it. The after hours message told me to call 911 to get a city employee dispatched. Then, I had to call 911 again to get the water turned back on?! The next day, I got home, and there was a vagrant hanging out on my porch. I couldn’t get them to respond to me, so I called 911 again to get the cops to come out.
I just found out about this over the weekend, and you’re right, it is pretty awesome! One other useful thing is:
- “M Zip”, and it’ll give you the movies playing near that ZIP. You pick which one you want and it’ll text you the showtimes.
The criminal had probably made your license plate in prison last year. He just recognized it and wanted it back, the sentimental bastard.
In New Mexico, plate and registration sticker thefts are so bad that it’s gotten to the point where they actually print the plate number on the little registration sticker. It’s even worse in some ways since the plate is issued to the owner, not to the car, and so you can be like my parents and have the same plate for 15 years and then put the plate on a brand new car.
You can call 911 and immediately state that it is not an emergency. That leaves it to the operator’s perogative to deal with your call as appropriate. I did this twice before 411 was available in my area, and they were totally fine with it.
I went out to my car one morning to discover the rear plate of my car missing. I called 911 and they gave me a case number over the phone. I then headed out for work and, in less than a mile, got pulled over. The officer just glanced at the case number and sent me on my way. That evening I found out that my neighbor’s car was stolen at the same time. I guess I’m glad that I tend to drive uglier cars than my neighbors.
My ex had “vanity” plates on her car, though, and they were stolen just the same. She called 311 (non-emergency) and was directed to have someone drive her to the local precinct where she filled out a report. Went to the DMV and had new plates the same day. Sucks, though–she loved those plates and now she can never have them again.
In a related story, she also had her car registration stolen from her glove box a while back. Nothing else, just the registration slip. Apparently both types of thievery are fairly common.
Most auto parts stores and auto departments in big department stores carry “security” tag bolts which require a special tool to install and remove them, similar to the special lug nuts for tires. Don’t know yet how secure they really are, but it might be a good investment.
When my car was stolen, I dialed 411 for directory assistance and got the non-emergency number from them. I called 911 when I witnessed a guy have a grand mal seizure while trying to cross the street. The latter was a bona fide emergency wherein the guy could have died. The former was an inconvenience.
There was a serious motorcycle accident by my mom’s house a few years ago, and yes indeed, calling 911 resulted in a busy signal and we couldn’t get through. Luckily, the lines were busy because evidently a ton of people were calling for the same reason, because when we finally did get through, the dispatcher answered the phone saying: “Is this about the motorcycle accident on Cellphone Street?”
I was waiting for a bus in Chicago once and some idiot came by and started using a nearby traffic light control box as a kicking dummy. I didn’t do anything (hey, I figured he might start kicking me instead of the box) and eventually he left. Then I noticed that the traffic signals had stopped working, leading to the expect snarl because no one ever remembers that a non-functioning traffic signal is treated as a four-way stop. So I took out my cell phone and called 911; the operator took the information about where the light was, then transferred me to another office (traffic control, IIRC) which took another report. My bus came before anyone showed up, but the 911 operator didn’t seem at all annoyed that I had called 911 instead of a non-emergency number.
re: plates. Some people will steal plates when they leave a car in short term parking for a long time. They switch plates, then claim a lost ticket. From that they end up just paying the daily rate. (Friend used to keep old plates in his car in case a one-day trip turned into a one-week trip, he would swap out before exiting).
re: 911. Some jurisdictions simply do not have someone answering the phone at the station for non-emergencies. I have tried that in the past and was told that if I wanted a cop dispatched, I had to calll 911. I simply had my hubcaps stolen and wanted to report it, and I was told to call 911. When the cop showed up, he was pissed off that he had to come and take the report rather than stop “real crime.” I told him that I agreed, but that nobody was providing a different avenue of reporting.
Did you not notice that the OP called for the death penalty for people who steal $24 from him? I think we should just be grateful he didn’t go on a Mad Max style revenge killing spree.
I had my plate stolen (along with the car, but that’s another story). When it was recovered, turns out the guy had put a different car’s plate (also stolen) on mine to slow down the police.
What with one thing and another, I wound up driving it for about a week and a half before I got a new plate–so the car had no plate at all. My boyfriend was driving it one day when a cop came along behind him, then pulled up on his left at a stop light. She motioned for him to roll down his window, which he did.
“Your car doesn’t have a plate!” she said.
“It was stolen and we just recovered it,” he said.
“Well, get that taken care of.”
“I will.”
And they both drove off.
Yes, but once you kill the thief and his head is mounted on your dashboard while his body is in a pool of blood staining the parking lot, then you can legitimately call 911 (and probably ask for a SWAT team even, I bet they’d send one if you told them about the head on your dash).