# What's the average police response time in a rural area **URL:** \ **Category:** Factual Questions\ **Created:** [November 26, 2013, 6:00am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-the-average-police-response-time-in-a-rural-area/674804 "2013-11-26T06:00:18Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 10\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![JerrySTL](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/e274bd/32.png) [@JerrySTL](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/JerrySTL)\ **Post date:** [November 26, 2013, 6:05pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-the-average-police-response-time-in-a-rural-area/674804/21 "2013-11-26T18:05:53Z")
I had my car stolen in the city where I live. It took the cops over an hour to respond and the station was less that 3 miles from where the theft happened. On the other hand I was on a group bicycle ride way out in the boonies when one of the riders was seriously injured in a crash with a dog. We were so far in the middle of nowhere that I had to ride to the top of a hill to get a cell phone signal. The ambulance arrived within 15 minutes of my calling 911 and a sheriff showed up about 5 minutes later to take a report. So I guess ‘it depends’ may be the answer. ---
**Author:** ![ChickenLegs](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/ecc23a/32.png) [@ChickenLegs](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ChickenLegs)\ **Post date:** [November 26, 2013, 6:24pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-the-average-police-response-time-in-a-rural-area/674804/22 "2013-11-26T18:24:20Z")
Like the gun-rights people say: Call for a cop. Call for a pizza. See which one gets there first. and When seconds count, the police are only minutes away. ---
**Author:** ![Stealth\_Potato](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/d78d45/32.png) [@Stealth\_Potato](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Stealth_Potato)\ **Post date:** [November 26, 2013, 7:51pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-the-average-police-response-time-in-a-rural-area/674804/23 "2013-11-26T19:51:32Z")
Response times in rural (or even urban) areas can be pretty long, but there are exceptions. Back in 2008, right after I’d graduated from university and was still staying with my dad out in the middle of nowhere, an airplane came hurtling just over the treeline, narrowly missed the house, and crashed into a stand of douglas firs. The first emergency vehicles arrived three minutes after we called 911; within just a few more there was a firetruck and it seemed like sheriff’s deputies were everywhere. This was in a county with a total population just over 100K, and most of that concentrated far west of us; the nearest town was about seven miles away and had a population of 700. (And, in fact, said town did not even have a police department of its own; it’d had one years before, but a scandal resulted in the entire department being fired and the town contracting with the county sheriff instead…) So all things considered, I was thoroughly impressed with the response time – and it was probably a key factor in saving the lives of the plane’s passengers; the pilot, unfortunately, died on impact. It probably helped that, despite the extremely rural location, we were near the main highway through those parts. And maybe we were just lucky that there happened to be deputies nearby who could respond immediately. At any rate, a plane crash is probably a pretty high priority call. > [@obbn](#): > > With that being said, I don’t think that there is much chance of an arrest happening. We didn’t catch them in the act so unless someone confesses there isn’t any way to find out who did it. You may be right, but I hope not. Even if it wasn’t exactly attempted murder, the person responsible absolutely ought to face the music for such insane recklessness. Please follow up with the sheriff’s office as much as you can. > [@ChickenLegs](#): > > Call for a cop. Call for a pizza. See which one gets there first. Simple solution: tell the cop there’s going to be pizza. 😃 ---
**Author:** ![PastTense](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/pasttense/32/14550_2.png) [@PastTense](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/PastTense)\ **Post date:** [November 26, 2013, 8:34pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-the-average-police-response-time-in-a-rural-area/674804/24 "2013-11-26T20:34:35Z")
> [@Crafter\_Man](#): > > I live in a rural county in Ohio, and am good friends with one of the sheriff’s deputies. One evening while we were drinking some brewskies, my buddy confided in me that “they only had a couple deputies on the road during a typical evening shift.” I told him I was surprised by this, and he said it’s due to budget constraints One thing to note is that it takes about 5 deputies to provide one deputy available 24 hours a day, seven days a week (since there are 168 hours in a week, an officer will work 40 hours a week–but time will be lost due to vacations, training programs, etc). Then with fewer people working the night hours a sheriff with 15 or so deputies might have 2 on duty for each overnight shift. ---
**Author:** ![Quartz](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/quartz/32/267_2.png) [@Quartz](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Quartz)\ **Post date:** [November 26, 2013, 10:04pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-the-average-police-response-time-in-a-rural-area/674804/25 "2013-11-26T22:04:49Z")
> [@obbn](#): > > Am I expecting too much our of local law enforcement or does living in the country mean we’ll have to rely on ourselves? How much do you pay in police tax? ---
**Author:** ![yellowjacketcoder](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/y/4bbf92/32.png) [@yellowjacketcoder](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/yellowjacketcoder)\ **Post date:** [November 27, 2013, 2:56am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-the-average-police-response-time-in-a-rural-area/674804/26 "2013-11-27T02:56:30Z")
> [@obbn](#): > > That’s just plain disgusting there. You would hope that with an active criminal in your home you would be up on the priority list. You would think that. But then, APD is the same police department that raided the wrong house and shot a 92 year old grandma to death, so they aren’t exactly known for their exemplary performance. ---
**Author:** ![obbn](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/o/d6d6ee/32.png) [@obbn](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/obbn)\ **Post date:** [November 27, 2013, 3:42am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-the-average-police-response-time-in-a-rural-area/674804/27 "2013-11-27T03:42:25Z")
> [@Quartz](#): > > How much do you pay in police tax? I couldn’t tell you. We pay out property taxes like everyone else, what percentage of that goes towards the Sheriff’s office I couldn’t tell you. I will say this, they get a good chunk of the county’s money. The sheriff has a huge jail, they just upgraded the force to new cars and don’t even get me stated in the yearly donut budget. 😃 All joking aside, please don’t take my op or follow up comments to mean I’m bashing the police. They are doing a hard job and now that I know they only have six officers on shift at night I feel kinda sorry for them. ---
**Author:** ![Iggy](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/iggy/32/3364_2.png) [@Iggy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Iggy)\ **Post date:** [November 27, 2013, 4:11am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-the-average-police-response-time-in-a-rural-area/674804/28 "2013-11-27T04:11:15Z")
In our jurisdiction police spend far too much time attending to reports that are far from the types of incidents mentioned in this thread. For every hot burglary call there are a dozen loud music complaints - and the people filing the loud music complainants insists on just as rapid a response and are the ones complaining loudly to anyone who will listen about a slow response. ---
**Author:** ![Raza](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/raza/32/213_2.png) [@Raza](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Raza)\ **Post date:** [November 27, 2013, 3:27pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-the-average-police-response-time-in-a-rural-area/674804/29 "2013-11-27T15:27:38Z")
Regarding the comments on budgets: as much as I would have wanted another one or two deputies in my 50-square-mile beat, and that I could certainly make a case for it on a safety or service-level basis, areas are typically staffed based on call volume. During a 6pm-6am shift in that huge area, I might get 3-8 calls total. There are lots of valid reasons to have more deputies assigned to an area (budget-permitting), but Captains only have X deputies available, and almost always assign manpower based on the average number of calls. ---
**Author:** ![jerryp8472](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/ecae2f/32.png) [@jerryp8472](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/jerryp8472)\ **Post date:** [November 27, 2013, 5:57pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-the-average-police-response-time-in-a-rural-area/674804/30 "2013-11-27T17:57:53Z")
About 2 months back we had to call the police about a fight that happened. It took nearly 30 minutes for them to arrive and we live in the middle of a medium sized city. On a side note, I once had a car catch fire and it took over 20 minutes for the fire department to arrive. I’m not entirely how they work, but I do know there was a fire substation 3 blocks away… I’ve always figured that was normal as far as response times go, and that the realistic purpose of police is to protect indirectly, through fear of punishment. They can’t do much for you on the spot, though. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-the-average-police-response-time-in-a-rural-area/674804.md?page=1)