A friend has just emailed this message to me. The story sounds unlikely: does anyone know if there is any truth in it?

'I know you don’t all live in Dorset but a mobile is a mobile wherever you live. I didn't know about 112 did you? This is some useful advice which has been verified by the Dorset Police. This number does work from a mobile.

This actually happened to someone's daughter. Lauren was 19 yrs old and in college. This story takes place over the Christmas/New Year's holiday break. It was the Saturday before New Year and it was about 1.00pm in the afternoon, and Lauren was driving to visit a friend, when an UNMARKED police car pulled up behind her and put its lights on. Lauren's parents have 4 children (of various ages) and have always told them never to pull over for an unmarked car on the side of the road, but rather wait until they get to a service station, etc.

So Lauren remembered her parents' advice, and telephoned 112 from her mobile phone. This connected her to the police dispatcher. She told the dispatcher that there was an unmarked police car with a flashing blue light on his rooftop behind her and that she would not pull over right away but wait until she was in a service station or busy area.

The dispatcher checked to see if there was a police car where she was and there wasn't and he told her to keep driving, remain calm and that he had back-up already on the way. Ten minutes later 4 police cars surrounded her and the unmarked car behind her. One policeman went to her side and the others surrounded the car behind. They pulled the guy from the car and tackled him to the ground........the man was a convicted rapist and wanted for other crimes.

I never knew that bit of advice, but especially for a woman alone in a car, you do not have to pull over for an UNMARKED car. Apparently police have to respect your right to keep going to a 'safe' place. You obviously need to make some signals that you acknowledge them I.e.., put on your hazard lights) or call 112 like Lauren did.

Too bad the mobile phone companies don't give you this little bit of wonderful information. So now it's your turn to let your friends know about 112 (112 is an emergency number on your mobile that takes you straight to the police because 999 does not work if you have no signal). This is good information that I did not know!

Please pass on to all your friends, especially any females.

As far as I am aware, 112 uses a system called triangulation so they can also pinpoint exactly where you are phoning from.'

 

112 will also unlock a nokia when the screensaver / protect is on. Not sure if it works for other phones.

 

112 will unlock screensavers/keylock etc in most cases (some touch screen phones will not as you can get to the key screen), can be dialled from phones with no sim card and can be dialled across other networks that you are not subscribed too. A lot of phones will also do this with other emergency numbers e.g 999, 911, 000 etc...

 

Why is it phrased in Yank terminology (I know Dorset is closer to them than here but...)

Also if there's no signal, why does requesting a different number from an invisible sat. work?

 

It doesn't.

Its just another BS internet hoax that does the rounds occasionally.

Regular phones CANNOT use sat, unless you are the BBC in some isolated African state

112 is just the EU version of the UK 999 thats all.

No cell signal, no talkie.

"m1bjr" is a uk ham radio callsign btw.

 

Hoax unfortunately

I have to check these things out as part of my job, I recognised 'Lauren' straight away. It was probably 'valideted' by an employee of Dorset Police who didn't check it out before sending it on to friends and colleagues, thus lending extra weight to the hoax. It's also really annoying because if the situation arouse where this needed to be used, a person could be put in grave danger because of bad advice.

Other examples that spring to mind are; you'll get shot as part of a gang initiation if you flash cars that have no lights on at night, entering your PIN backwards in an ATM will automatically call the Police to your location and perfunme samples in department stores being drugged so women can be mugged/raped in the car park later.

It seems that emails from random people have replaced "a bloke down the pub said, so it must be true".

 

The only thing useful from that email is for a single woman (or bloke) not to stop in a remote location for an unmarked police car but to drive somewhere safer.

 

And get prosecuted for failure to stop! The Police will generally only pull you over where/when it is safe to do so.

I really believe that if there was a rapist posing as a Police Officer in an unmarked vehicle we'd have heard about it in the media by now, it's not a recurrent problem either.

I'm happy to be corrected by any Police chaps on here if I'm wrong.

 

And how many 'unmarked' police cars do you see with a "...flashing blue light on his rooftop..."?

112 is the international emergency number. Should work anywhere in the world; in the UK, as I understand it it maps to 999.

 

Phoning 112 from your mobile will bypass the SIM and bypass the mobile provider you use. Your phone will scan all available networks to make the call, so if you are with vodafone and there is no signal but there is with O2 it will route the 112 call over O2. In fact.. if you remove the SIM there is a greater chance of getting through to an emergency number if you are in a foreign country, since it will force the device to find network, rather than via your SIM.

One of the reasons why 121 rebranded IIRC. voicemail on some phones is still 121 though so I assume a ton of false calls are made in error still.