In the past two years I have called the emergency services. Once when my neighbour's builder set light to his roof. On the other occasion I called the 101 non-emergency police no to report a suspicious package in a vehicle that had been left unattended. I kid you not...... five police cars turned up within five minutes lights & sirens. Turned out that it was some young lad who had parked in the office car park and decided to visit a restaurant across the road with his girlfriend. The suspicious package was a small suitcase clearly visible on the back seat.
I've never dialed. I had my car stolen about 12 years ago, which was quite surreal as nothing like that had happened to me before. I got the number for the local police station and reported it, the police officer I spoke to was surprised that I hadn't dialed 999 and asked why, 'well, it's not really an emergency, is it?' I replied. Made me wonder what trivial things do actually get reported to the emergency services. The bigger mystery is how I got the phone number without the wonder of Google.
A joke I was told as a kid still makes me chuckle and I'm sure most of you have heard but, Where do policemen live? 999 Letsbee Ave. Sorry