[Sca-cooks] OT OOP "Official Language" was Seville orangesubstitutions

[Terry Decker]

I've got some suspicions about this one.

To my knowledge Arabic numerals are in common use in most countries.  The
signs might be in Chinese, but I would expect the street numbers to be
understandable.

To deliver mail, the Post Office requires a readable occupant name and
address on the mailbox.  While this may be honored in the breach, I've
actually had the USPS put such a label on my mailbox.

Street signs are posted by the municipality.  While they may be
multi-lingual, at least one of the languages will be English.  Police and
fire departments can roughly locate themselves by the cross streets.

GPS locators are being used by more and more emergency responders and by
2005 (IIRC) all new cell phones in the US will be required to have a GPS
signal that activates during a 911 calls, giving a precise position.  Land
lines are traceable.

The biggest problem with reaching a precise location is not usually with
finding an address, but with the information being transmitted either from
the reporting caller to the 911 operator or from the 911 operator to the
responders.  For example, several years ago someone torched a dumpster in
the alley behind my house.  I called 911 and gave the operator precise
information on the fire (a dumpster fire) and its location (in the alley
between Jenkins and DeBarr).  The fire truck that responded pulled up in the
street in front of my house rather than in the back where the fire was.
Even GPS location information couldn't correct that kind of error.

Was the legislation just created to correct the problem or were there
reports and hearings to outline the scope of the problem and the suggested
corrective measures.  Being a retired bureaucrat, if the latter aren't
present, then I believe there may be politicians with ulterior motives
involved.

Bear


>  When
>emergencies happened and 911 was called to a
>store, the firemen and the police had difficulty
>finding the location, as even the store addresses
>were written in Chinese on the building.

>Huette