Thursday, April 09, 2009

10-4, Good Buddy, Over and out

Perhaps this will also stop the tormenting practice of asking someone “What’s your 20?” over the radio when they know full well you are in the office bathroom. 

Increasingly, police and firefighters are dropping the 10-codes made popular in scores of television shows and films in favor of “plain-speak” communications — regular words people use in regular conversation.

The Federal Emergency Management Administration is spearheading the move after learning 10-codes that convey different information to different departments hampered efforts to cope with the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks and the Hurricane Katrina relief effort. The agency originally told agencies in late 2005 they would need to speak “plain English” on the radio to qualify for federal grants, but softened the requirement of plain speak only for multiagency, multijurisdictional communications.

The codes originally were used to save air time, said Outagamie County Sheriff’s Capt. Mike Jobe, whose agency is encouraging officers and departments to use plain speak.

Once they’ve mastered the 10-codes, they are going to plain-speak Miranda:  “Shut up, you’re already screwed.  Don’t make it worse for yourself.”

(5) Comments
Posted by Wendy at 0713 hrs
Law

  1. As an aside, you can’t say “over and out.”  “Over” means I am done talking and I await your response.  “Out” means I am done talking and I am going to hang up so don’t respond.

    Posted by .(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address) on April 09, 2009 at 0806 hrs


  2. QSL and 88 to you and 73s I’m going to go get my 807 now smile

    Posted by .(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address) on April 09, 2009 at 0912 hrs


  3. I’m a big fan of the plain speak Miranda.

    Posted by Mike on April 09, 2009 at 1213 hrs


  4. You gotta love FEMA!  Here they are spearheading this effort more than seven years after nine-eleven.  I feel safer already…

    “Shut up, you’re already screwed.  Don’t make it worse for yourself”. - Didn’t FEMA already say that to the citizens of New Orleans?

    Posted by .(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address) on April 09, 2009 at 1659 hrs


  5. FEMA has been trying to get rid of APCO codes since the Wildfires of the 70s with the introduction of the Incident Command System (ICS) its just taken until now for the local law enforcement agencies to get the clue that the codes cause confusion and get in the way when trying to save lives. As a volunteer for FEMA (ARES and county EOC) I have seen this first hand in drills and know the effects when an agency uses codes and we have to look up the meaning.

    Posted by .(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address) on April 10, 2009 at 1431 hrs


Commenting is not available in this channel entry.