911: The Irony Continues

This would be funny if it weren't so... well, I'm OK, so it is kind of funny by now.

Through absolutely positively no fault of my own (that's my disclaimer in case the insurance companies are scouring the internet for information) I was in an accident on the freeway last night. Someone in a lane traveling at 10 mph decided to change lanes abruptly into the lane where I was traveling at 50 mph, and, well, you do the math. So, armed with all my new information about the state of LA emergency services, what did I do? I didn't call 911, because I knew I'd be on hold. So I called 411 and asked to be connected with the highway patrol office. They connected me to an office that was closed. So I called 911 to reach CHP, where I was, predictably, on hold for 5 minutes before I gave up, because my car was still driveable and the other car was leaving anyway and it no longer made sense for me to be sitting on the side of the road on hold when I could go somewhere much safer and more comfortable and be on hold later.

Anyhow, today, I looked up the CHP number on their website, so that I could call them directly (instead of calling 911) and make a report. So, I called the local number of their Los Angeles office... and what do I hear?

"You have reached 911..." which was then promptly replaced by a human voice waiting to handle my emergency, now that I was sitting around in my apartment drinking iced tea and totally not having an emergency of any sort.

So, the new moral of the story, which makes me feel ever-so-slightly better, is that it's still kind of OK to have an emergency in LA, as long as it's during business hours.