SLAP STUPIDITY FINES ON MORONIC 911 DIALERS.

Byline: Samantha Kimmel Local View

SOMETIMES what absolutely amazes me about the world I live in, by which I mean Los Angeles, is the donkey-stubborn attitude of the folks we've picked to run the joint to look a problem square in the face and see that the answer is tattooed across the problem's forehead.

Case in point: I saw a television news report the other night that presented a frightening statistic. According to the Los Angeles Police Department, nearly 80 percent of all 911 calls are not emergent. This means that nonemergency calls jam up our 911 system, making it pretty dicey for those who are calling in a real life-threatening situation expecting help.

This same news report included audio tape of some of the 911 calls, which proved that not only are these calls nonemergent, they are also, to use a phrase that the LAPD didn't, made by morons.

In the first one, a woman dialed up her friendly and helpful 911 Emergency Systems Operator to ask for the telephone number of her local Sears. OK, so after the first eight mai tais that ``9'' sure looks like a ``4,'' and darn it, after that many pretty drinks I'd probably also get a hankering to know the mumbler of the Steers and Bobeck, rannow!, thanYOOsoooooverramush.

But the next call was a prize winner. Dispatcher: ``911, what is your emergency?''

Caller: ``There's a big black spider on my counter!''

Dispatcher: ``There's a what?''

Caller: ``There's a big spider on my kitchen counter, and it's got a big old red bootie!''

People, everyone knows that this is not a 911 call. This is a run-screaming-to-the-next-door-neighbor-whLine is overdrawn o-you-know-has-her-own-big-red-bootie-and-Line is overdrawn you-get-her-to-smash-the-creature-with-it Line is overdrawn kind of call.

Per the LAPD, these kinds of calls are typical, and they are crippling the 911 system. Some folks at City Hall have proposed a new phone number, 311, as an alternative for the nimrods currently calling 911 and clogging it up with their nimroddery. It would be a special police personnel manned information number. It won't fly. Callers can't tell the difference between a ``4'' and a ``9'' now.

What's the solution I've come up with, you ask? I reply, ``The solution has practically painted itself neon orange and is currently leaping in the air, waving its arms trying to get our attention.''

I say fine 'em. That's right: fines.

Simple as that. Anybody here live in a condo complex? Anyone ever been fined for breaking the rules and regulations of the complex? You get one warning, and then you get zapped with a fine.

Here's how it would work (marvel in the unfettered simplicity): Say you call 911 to inquire about the road conditions at the 101/405 southbound interchange. (What a stupid thing to do: the conditions are miserable, 24/7, who doesn't know that?) The 911 operator makes the judgment that you have, in a fit of intellectual vacuity, done this stupid, stupid thing, and will then flag your number, and if it's not your first offense, send a bill to it.

That's it, ladies and gentlemen: the first asinine 911 call, that's your free bite at the apple. You are politely warned to never do it again, and to get the hell off the phone.

If you do do it again, your phone number gets fined $50, to go up in $25 increments with each successive transgression. No appeals. No pleas of ignorance and stupidity (anyone who calls 911 to ask for the number of a department store has already pretty much proved their IQ is hovering dangerously near single digits).

And paying fines stings, my friends. Makes you remember not to do the stupid thing again. So you pay your fines, or your phone privileges get yanked.

Sound harsh? Try telling that to the fellow whose wife of 50 years has just clutched her chest and keeled over. Or the father whose baby has stopped breathing and turned blue.

Try telling any one of the thousands of people throughout this city that their loved one will just have to wait because the operator is busy telling some brainless twerp that 911 is not the best place to find out if it's raining.

Fine 'em, Danno.