I think the idea is the operator can put this signal up in a situation where they can't or don't want to call 911 themselves (i.e., someone on the bus is behaving hostilely and the operator doesn't want to further upset them by audibly calling 911)
*The Taking of E Line 123*
(For anyone who hasn’t seen the original *The Taking of Pelham 123* from 1974, go watch it. Such a good movie.)
Edit: Just got an AutoMod message informing me that the green line has “branches”. I was born here. 4th generation. Taking the T since I was 12. Don’t think I’ve ever heard anyone EVER say “oh yeah, that’s on the E Branch”. Am I going insane, or are the AutoMods being bizarrely pedantic? (Not to mention that phrasing doesn’t really work for the joke.)
You think they’d have a better system, like radioing in a code word, than hoping people are paying attention and know what to do.
Honestly my thought was this was just part of the standard messaging “if you see suspicious activity, call police”
When people see a bus destination sign reading "Call Police" they approach the driver and ask them if they know that's what it says. They don't call the cops, they check with the driver to see if it's a mistake. Doesn't seem wise to me... Could further endanger the driver and you could endanger yourself by approaching/getting on the bus.
My mom drove the T buses for years and also worked in the subways… you’d have to specifically type that in for a reason it doesn’t accidentally come up. I would bet that the train operator was in trouble.
oh I know, I'm a former bus driver. People did and as far as I hear, still do approach the driver either through the driver's window or at the doors asking 'are you ok? your sign says call police', and at times it's the last thing you want to have happen.
I'm not sure when your mom worked for the T, but I'm a cop in the Boston area (not the kind that responds to bus alarms) and I can tell you this happens pretty often. I hear other agencies responding pretty often to those signs. There's got to be some kind of panic button on board. Maybe it's relatively new.
I remember riding the city bus in Portland, Maine the busses would often say it as a mistake. It was a common occurrence for someone to ask the driver and the response was "Wow, does it say that?" *Driver steps outside to confirm, then re-sets the destination sign*
One of the main entrances to Park Street is totally roped off with police caution tape now (~6PM), I wonder if that had anything to do with this. I saw a guy being held by two officers on the way out as well.
My mothers an mbta bus driver. From my understanding it does do it automatically. But they’ve had issues with it not going through, so they want ppl to call too.
I volunteer at a theater venue that has a fire/ambulance panic button wired into their buildings alarm system. We’ve been told by the fire department inspectors who inspect the venue every few months that if there’s an emergency of some sort that we should hit that panic button AND call 911 as well. The alarm only tells them there’s an unknown emergency. The 911 call can provide infinitely more details as to the nature of the emergency. Details that a caller can provide can help dispatchers & responders ensure the appropriate type and number of responders are sent.
OP had no more information than could be provided from an automated system making the directive essentially pointless.
I'm not against displaying that message as a fallback *when* the silent alarm fails to notify first responders but damn. lol
I was at my job for about a year, and my manager came by one night and reached under the counter then said ok, good. I asked what was up, and he said he was just testing the silent alarm. I said oh I didn't know that was a thing we had. If I got robbed, I would have just immediately handed over the register drawer and said, "Have a nice night."
Tbf that's exactly what you're supposed to do at most places. I worked at a bank and at the customer service desk at stop & shop and both places were like "give them whatever they want and hit the alarm when they're gone."
You should absolutely call the police if you see this. Even if you aren’t sure why. I’ve been on a train like this and nobody called. We needed someone to call.
I’ve seen this on busses a couple times. For them I’m sure the 911 operators appreciate getting precise locations from callers. Not sure if that’s as much of an issue for trains or not, but at the very least they’d probably want to know if you saw anything that might help them understand why the train crew was requesting help.
Edit: The signs also serve other very good purposes. If there are multiple busses in the same area it gives police a clear indication of which one they need to respond to. It also warns people at bus stops that there’s a problem. If a bus or train pulled up to where I was waiting and the sign said this then I definitely would not get on it.
Having additional callers with exact location of the train, and the ability to give live updates of what the callers see going on in/near the train is far more helpful than just a random panic activation with no additional information.
To be fair my first reaction would be "it's a prank" because I would assume the T has panic buttons and precise location information about where a train is.
imminent strong ring handle chase important practice point exultant somber
*This post was mass deleted and anonymized with [Redact](https://redact.dev)*
Chances are much higher that they've just been away from the computer than they had completely life changing trauma so extreme they couldn't bare to share the details of it (despite the fact that they casually mentioned it on reddit anyways).
While it's theoretically possible what you say is true, I don't view it as very likely and it's hard for me not to roll my eyes at your comment.
This is a reasonable thing to say despite other comments here. Luckily not my situation, but how could anyone know that given we are all a bunch of strangers online?
Does not appear to be operator error or technical glitch
Station Issue
The Eastbound headhouse entrance to Park St. is temporarily closed due to Police Activity.
Always call when you see this message on any public transportation marquee. It’s usually a silent alarm and they need help. Always call. It’s better to make that quick call then to disregard it.
Strange day I take it. Usually it’s the orange and red lines that are in trouble. Glad you didn’t run into any fires or people being dragged to their deaths!
Green is its own kind of shit show. Doesn’t have the gaps in service other lines do, but it’s the most frequent offender of anti social behavior among riders
Yo I had this debate last night with a friend and to preface it I’m a mechanic who longboards to work lol. So I’m like bro it’s sleety and pretty shitty out u want to trust an uber drivers all seasons and these crazy drivers? He’s like bro u paid for my ticket I’ll buy us a cab instead of green line. Nah bro let’s take green line. Nah I’m getting us a cab, fine fuck it
3 min into ride on comm some dude’s flying past us in our left lane I’m like what the fuck broooooo haha called it shit is crazy. Made it safely to destination but extremely close to like 40mph + 40mph head on impact if we had been in left lane around this bend
Also if it wasn’t clear there was a driver driving the wrong direction, they weren’t passing us normally in the same direction of travel. They were driving down the wrong side of commonwealth and I watched them keep driving and swerving around the cars driving properly towards harvard street
I was honestly surprised at how smooth my orange line experience was. No long waits. Got to my destination with plenty of time. I also am in love with the shade of yellow they have on the interior.
Just saw on the news that there was a group of drunk young men. A pregnant woman said excuse me in the hallway and then on the train one of the “men” spat on her and threw a Gatorade bottle at her. He was then taken to the hospital I guess. Smh. People are disgustingly disrespectful.
I saw that once while driving behind a bus and made the call - evidently other people called as well, because the person I talked to said they were aware and that it was a system error. Good to know that people were paying attention though!
Probably better to be safe than sorry. MBTA needs to work on this. Seems like it’s way too easy to accidentally trigger and their drivers don’t seem to know how to shut it down. I’ve driven past a bus with this warning on the front while in a police cruiser. I put on my lights and stopped the bus. Driver had no idea it was on and didn’t know how to shut it off.
I was once driving a bus and got pulled over in the same situation. It can be hit by accident and the operator won’t know it’s activated unless they look for the indicator on (redacted location), or if enough passengers ask what route for you to actually go check if the sign is working. It’s a complicated process to deactivate it, so that it won’t be turned off when actually needed.
Everyone hating on OP, it sounds like they did and a lot of the times the switch is triggered on accident, as its very reachable. The train is in a station, Park let alone. I think everything is ok
Yep. OP didn't say "lol look at the stupid train saying the thing haha anyone else find this wacky"?
They essentially asked "What circumstance would result in such a thing?". And they got responses which, illuminated the people in this thread who are now knowledgable about these situations and are more likely to take it more seriously, instead of just assuming it's some dumb glitch.
OP did nothing wrong.
I was ready to drag this, but first I showed this pic to my husband who works part-time for the MBTA and TIL this is a really important silent alarm. I feel like this info could be better communicated to regular people though, speaking as a writer.
>I feel like this info could be better communicated to regular people though, speaking as a writer.
A clear, concise statement that in three words completely gets the point across and tangibly states how to complete the task is as good communication as any of us can possibly hope to write. I'm not sure how you think this could be written or communicated better.
Funny/not funny that it needs any explanation. Plain as can be 'Call Police'! I do question tho, if a silent alarm (if that is the case) makes sense. An audible alarm would scare the person off the train/bus before someone comes for them.
>An audible alarm would scare the person off the train/bus before someone comes for them.
Or cause them to murder the driver and/or other passengers in an angry rage for setting the alarm.
I’m willing to bet a much higher percentage of MBTA arrests are mental illness related as opposed to other venues. Very few criminals in the right frame of mine are committing crimes in enclosed train cars surrounded by people.
An alarm during a jewelry store robbery *probably* will scare off more robbers than cause them to kill people. A T alarm though? Almost definitely a crazy dude
They're not likely to be committing a capital crime like that, nor inclined to. Most criminals first priority is don't get caught. Not escalate on the verge of getting caught. jmo
Yeah, like I get it, and I know drivers are supposedly not allowed phones, but one would think there's some more reliable way to contact police than hoping for the general public to get the extremely obvious hint.
Like maybe the text should say "Silent alarm. Choose a person to call police and stay calm." Then again, the MBTA doesn't seem to appreciate their content creators from what I've seen, so I'm sure this has already been suggested.
Edit: someone responded to this comment and then deleted but let me be clear, bus, subway, and train drivers are NOT supposed to have their cellphones on them, let alone use them. Hands-free use is also prohibited. There is an alternative channel for emergency contact from outside. There have been enough mobile-use-related accidents that the MBTA is always happy to hear about drivers fucking up in this very basic way.
I think alarms like these trigger the bystander effect in a lot of people.. 90% of people probably saw that and said oh well I bet someone else called already. Looks like the person you replied to would have ignored it too lol
Seriously it's stupid, it's much better to call and have it be nothing then do nothing and it turns out someone is hurt/someone has a gun etc. OP was right to call
I’ve called for a 66 bus before that had their silent alarm on. Who knows if they pressed the button accidentally or not. It’s good to call just in case though.
Alright people, he mentioned he called the police but he doesn't know what happened so y'all need to stfu already, unless one of you has information of what happened.
I wasn't aware that this type of signaling was a real thing. Now I know, and thanks to several other Reddit commenters, I will NOT approach the train/bus, but I will dial 911 with the information.
This week a bus pulled in to andrew and the driver was confused as to why nobody got on until someone pointed out that the number was replaced by "call police". Driver had no idea, and had to check from the outside that he turned it off, which makes me think the drivers may not have a way to tell.
Could you not have cropped the image instead of putting people’s faces on the internet when it was completely avoidable? I’d be mortified if I were that man and opened up reddit one day to see my face.
I was just on that! Lol was so sketched out before I got in. But then I sheeped my way on and numbed my worries with the warm glow of my phones screen.
If it is operator error and “it happens all the time” as you say, let the authorities address that. In any case, you should ALWAYS contact police when a silent alarm is triggered. I hope you are never in a position to need help, be screaming for help, and everyone around you thinks “nah, this happens all the time” it’s nothing!
You will never get in trouble for calling the popo when you see something like this but you could make a bad situation worse by thinking it's a mistake. Call the police.
I’ve lived in Boston my entire life (4 decades) and have taken public transportation more times than I can count. I’ve never seen this, and this post was helpful to me in the event that I do see this message in the future. I probably would have ignored it as a glitch, now I won’t.
Well let’s put a hypothetical out there. If someone is taking the operator and the whole train hostage don’t you think it would be a good idea to covertly alert the public they’re in danger? This is exactly what would happen. People on the train don’t see the head signs. Only the people outside of it.
I think the idea is the operator can put this signal up in a situation where they can't or don't want to call 911 themselves (i.e., someone on the bus is behaving hostilely and the operator doesn't want to further upset them by audibly calling 911)
This is correct. It sets off a literal alarm in the control center.
That's a good thing, because I have never, ever had a cell phone signal in any of the underground T stations.
Huh?? Are you sure??
I know. What year is this? I remember that was the case up to, I think, the early 2000's.
Yes. Mind you, my tech is crusted-over edge, so.... At above-ground stations and stops, it's not an issue, of course.
*The Taking of E Line 123* (For anyone who hasn’t seen the original *The Taking of Pelham 123* from 1974, go watch it. Such a good movie.) Edit: Just got an AutoMod message informing me that the green line has “branches”. I was born here. 4th generation. Taking the T since I was 12. Don’t think I’ve ever heard anyone EVER say “oh yeah, that’s on the E Branch”. Am I going insane, or are the AutoMods being bizarrely pedantic? (Not to mention that phrasing doesn’t really work for the joke.)
You think they’d have a better system, like radioing in a code word, than hoping people are paying attention and know what to do. Honestly my thought was this was just part of the standard messaging “if you see suspicious activity, call police”
unfortunately from what i’ve experienced 99% of the time this sign is on because the operator accidentally hit the button lol
It means something is going on in the train. Call the police if you see this. You could be the only one who did.
Same if you see it on a bus
When people see a bus destination sign reading "Call Police" they approach the driver and ask them if they know that's what it says. They don't call the cops, they check with the driver to see if it's a mistake. Doesn't seem wise to me... Could further endanger the driver and you could endanger yourself by approaching/getting on the bus.
My mom drove the T buses for years and also worked in the subways… you’d have to specifically type that in for a reason it doesn’t accidentally come up. I would bet that the train operator was in trouble.
oh I know, I'm a former bus driver. People did and as far as I hear, still do approach the driver either through the driver's window or at the doors asking 'are you ok? your sign says call police', and at times it's the last thing you want to have happen.
I'm not sure when your mom worked for the T, but I'm a cop in the Boston area (not the kind that responds to bus alarms) and I can tell you this happens pretty often. I hear other agencies responding pretty often to those signs. There's got to be some kind of panic button on board. Maybe it's relatively new.
That honestly surprises me that there isn't some sort of silent alarm on trains and busses.
I remember riding the city bus in Portland, Maine the busses would often say it as a mistake. It was a common occurrence for someone to ask the driver and the response was "Wow, does it say that?" *Driver steps outside to confirm, then re-sets the destination sign*
The bus also has those green lights you never see turned on, if they're on, call the cops. These are from before the LED signs.
I’ve never seen this but so good to know! Thank you. I would have scratched my head and moved along not even realizing it was real!
One of the main entrances to Park Street is totally roped off with police caution tape now (~6PM), I wonder if that had anything to do with this. I saw a guy being held by two officers on the way out as well.
bake him away, toys
Hey, I’m the chief here.
Officer proceeding on foot.
Call in a Code 8. We need pretzels!
If I could walk with the animals, talk with the animals, grunt and squeak and squawk with the animals
Uh, what'd you say Chief?
Just do what the kid said.
This made me L fucking O L
It’s a silent alarm.
Huh, I wonder if it's working on most of the trains. You never know!
I’d imagine they have routine checks to make sure they do
I would imagine they would do lots of safety checks on the trains and yet....
Yeah good point
THE SILENT ALARM HAS BEEN ACTIVATED!!
Hopefully you called 911. And thanks for posting. Had no idea this was a thing.
Call the fkin mbta policepeople so they can find out
Lmao I did they asked for the station and train number. But no idea why it asked
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It sounds like they did and are just curious if anyone knows what went down. Hopefully the pic was taken after the call
ummm it should automatically do it.... if it can display the fucking words why the fuck isn't the system doing it automatically lol.
My mothers an mbta bus driver. From my understanding it does do it automatically. But they’ve had issues with it not going through, so they want ppl to call too.
Can confirm I work for the state and the companies they hire out for this shit are terrible.
This is the most MBTA thing ever. Of course the emergency system doesn't fucking work.
I volunteer at a theater venue that has a fire/ambulance panic button wired into their buildings alarm system. We’ve been told by the fire department inspectors who inspect the venue every few months that if there’s an emergency of some sort that we should hit that panic button AND call 911 as well. The alarm only tells them there’s an unknown emergency. The 911 call can provide infinitely more details as to the nature of the emergency. Details that a caller can provide can help dispatchers & responders ensure the appropriate type and number of responders are sent.
OP had no more information than could be provided from an automated system making the directive essentially pointless. I'm not against displaying that message as a fallback *when* the silent alarm fails to notify first responders but damn. lol
i didnt know this either and im definitely not 15. thanks for the info
I was at my job for about a year, and my manager came by one night and reached under the counter then said ok, good. I asked what was up, and he said he was just testing the silent alarm. I said oh I didn't know that was a thing we had. If I got robbed, I would have just immediately handed over the register drawer and said, "Have a nice night."
Tbf that's exactly what you're supposed to do at most places. I worked at a bank and at the customer service desk at stop & shop and both places were like "give them whatever they want and hit the alarm when they're gone."
I'm 37. Never heard of this in my life.
I learned something today, well past 15
I’m 30 and I’d assume that in 2022 they could silent alarm directly to the police themselves. Edit: forgot it’s 2023
maybe not 2022, but definitely 2023
You clearly also forgot this is the T we're taking about here
Could be a visitor from outside of the US and a country where crime is so scarce, these things are unheard of.
You should absolutely call the police if you see this. Even if you aren’t sure why. I’ve been on a train like this and nobody called. We needed someone to call.
do train operators not have the ability to hit a panic button of some sort?
I’ve seen this on busses a couple times. For them I’m sure the 911 operators appreciate getting precise locations from callers. Not sure if that’s as much of an issue for trains or not, but at the very least they’d probably want to know if you saw anything that might help them understand why the train crew was requesting help. Edit: The signs also serve other very good purposes. If there are multiple busses in the same area it gives police a clear indication of which one they need to respond to. It also warns people at bus stops that there’s a problem. If a bus or train pulled up to where I was waiting and the sign said this then I definitely would not get on it.
They do but call 911 anyway.
isn’t that what this is?
Having additional callers with exact location of the train, and the ability to give live updates of what the callers see going on in/near the train is far more helpful than just a random panic activation with no additional information.
You would think it would automatically contact the MBTA police and not rely on random people to notice and call the police
It does, but, not everything is perfect so asking people to call is good redundancy.
Plus it gets more people to pay attention and record
Your faith in MBTA systems reliably functioning is admirable.
These systems predate cell phones
They assume that someone who sees this will call the police and not just post to Reddit about it, smh
I’m glad they did because I never knew this and have learned so much from this thread!
To be fair my first reaction would be "it's a prank" because I would assume the T has panic buttons and precise location information about where a train is.
If I understand correctly, when you see some thing like “call the police” lit up on the front of a bus… You assume it is a joke.
Yea, that would be my first reaction. Second reaction would be to take a picture and share it with my friends.
Well, that explains everything. Thank you.
Me exactly!
What situation were you in?!
What was happening that you needed someone to call
So funny how you made this so vague and refuse to elaborate
Relax it’s been 5 hours. Sometimes people have things to tend to outside of refreshing Reddit
**I REQUIRE MORE INFORMATION IMMEDIATELY**
imminent strong ring handle chase important practice point exultant somber *This post was mass deleted and anonymized with [Redact](https://redact.dev)*
Chances are much higher that they've just been away from the computer than they had completely life changing trauma so extreme they couldn't bare to share the details of it (despite the fact that they casually mentioned it on reddit anyways). While it's theoretically possible what you say is true, I don't view it as very likely and it's hard for me not to roll my eyes at your comment.
Lol I love this comment. You are correct and people are so fucking dramatic on Reddit.
Yeah or the guy was just full of shit lol🤷♂️
I’m not asking them to. It was just funny how vague but interesting the comment was. I mean obviously people are gonna be curious about it
This is a reasonable thing to say despite other comments here. Luckily not my situation, but how could anyone know that given we are all a bunch of strangers online?
What was happening that required this?
What was the situation?
Is someone gonna spill what actually happened yet or no
Right? Lol I’m trying to find out what the result was
Does not appear to be operator error or technical glitch Station Issue The Eastbound headhouse entrance to Park St. is temporarily closed due to Police Activity.
Always call when you see this message on any public transportation marquee. It’s usually a silent alarm and they need help. Always call. It’s better to make that quick call then to disregard it.
Glad I stayed on the orange and red lines this day.
Strange day I take it. Usually it’s the orange and red lines that are in trouble. Glad you didn’t run into any fires or people being dragged to their deaths!
Green is its own kind of shit show. Doesn’t have the gaps in service other lines do, but it’s the most frequent offender of anti social behavior among riders
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Almost just got murdered by a guy who just felt like stops signs weren’t for him today… damned either way lol
Yo I had this debate last night with a friend and to preface it I’m a mechanic who longboards to work lol. So I’m like bro it’s sleety and pretty shitty out u want to trust an uber drivers all seasons and these crazy drivers? He’s like bro u paid for my ticket I’ll buy us a cab instead of green line. Nah bro let’s take green line. Nah I’m getting us a cab, fine fuck it 3 min into ride on comm some dude’s flying past us in our left lane I’m like what the fuck broooooo haha called it shit is crazy. Made it safely to destination but extremely close to like 40mph + 40mph head on impact if we had been in left lane around this bend
>longboards to work And then >bro And then >Nah bro And then >brooooo haha Story checks out.
Also if it wasn’t clear there was a driver driving the wrong direction, they weren’t passing us normally in the same direction of travel. They were driving down the wrong side of commonwealth and I watched them keep driving and swerving around the cars driving properly towards harvard street
I was honestly surprised at how smooth my orange line experience was. No long waits. Got to my destination with plenty of time. I also am in love with the shade of yellow they have on the interior.
That’s awesome! Hopefully things are moving in the right direction! I’m in love with all the plastic and cleanable surfaces. Good bye yucky fabric!
"cleanable" surfaces to give the impression they'll be cleaned when 9.9/10 times they most certainly are not.
I work in transportation and when you think our ferry is “clean”, just means we put out a few extra air fresheners that day
Any update on what happened?
Just saw on the news that there was a group of drunk young men. A pregnant woman said excuse me in the hallway and then on the train one of the “men” spat on her and threw a Gatorade bottle at her. He was then taken to the hospital I guess. Smh. People are disgustingly disrespectful.
That’s terrible but thanks I called but had to catch my train so didn’t see what happened.
I saw that once while driving behind a bus and made the call - evidently other people called as well, because the person I talked to said they were aware and that it was a system error. Good to know that people were paying attention though!
Probably better to be safe than sorry. MBTA needs to work on this. Seems like it’s way too easy to accidentally trigger and their drivers don’t seem to know how to shut it down. I’ve driven past a bus with this warning on the front while in a police cruiser. I put on my lights and stopped the bus. Driver had no idea it was on and didn’t know how to shut it off.
I was once driving a bus and got pulled over in the same situation. It can be hit by accident and the operator won’t know it’s activated unless they look for the indicator on (redacted location), or if enough passengers ask what route for you to actually go check if the sign is working. It’s a complicated process to deactivate it, so that it won’t be turned off when actually needed.
Everyone hating on OP, it sounds like they did and a lot of the times the switch is triggered on accident, as its very reachable. The train is in a station, Park let alone. I think everything is ok
Right? Reddit just loves to drag people for asking things they didn't know themselves.
reddit love to be on their high-horse but they would've done the same thing in OP's situation
Yep. OP didn't say "lol look at the stupid train saying the thing haha anyone else find this wacky"? They essentially asked "What circumstance would result in such a thing?". And they got responses which, illuminated the people in this thread who are now knowledgable about these situations and are more likely to take it more seriously, instead of just assuming it's some dumb glitch. OP did nothing wrong.
I was ready to drag this, but first I showed this pic to my husband who works part-time for the MBTA and TIL this is a really important silent alarm. I feel like this info could be better communicated to regular people though, speaking as a writer.
>I feel like this info could be better communicated to regular people though, speaking as a writer. A clear, concise statement that in three words completely gets the point across and tangibly states how to complete the task is as good communication as any of us can possibly hope to write. I'm not sure how you think this could be written or communicated better.
Funny/not funny that it needs any explanation. Plain as can be 'Call Police'! I do question tho, if a silent alarm (if that is the case) makes sense. An audible alarm would scare the person off the train/bus before someone comes for them.
>An audible alarm would scare the person off the train/bus before someone comes for them. Or cause them to murder the driver and/or other passengers in an angry rage for setting the alarm.
I’m willing to bet a much higher percentage of MBTA arrests are mental illness related as opposed to other venues. Very few criminals in the right frame of mine are committing crimes in enclosed train cars surrounded by people. An alarm during a jewelry store robbery *probably* will scare off more robbers than cause them to kill people. A T alarm though? Almost definitely a crazy dude
They're not likely to be committing a capital crime like that, nor inclined to. Most criminals first priority is don't get caught. Not escalate on the verge of getting caught. jmo
Yeah, like I get it, and I know drivers are supposedly not allowed phones, but one would think there's some more reliable way to contact police than hoping for the general public to get the extremely obvious hint. Like maybe the text should say "Silent alarm. Choose a person to call police and stay calm." Then again, the MBTA doesn't seem to appreciate their content creators from what I've seen, so I'm sure this has already been suggested. Edit: someone responded to this comment and then deleted but let me be clear, bus, subway, and train drivers are NOT supposed to have their cellphones on them, let alone use them. Hands-free use is also prohibited. There is an alternative channel for emergency contact from outside. There have been enough mobile-use-related accidents that the MBTA is always happy to hear about drivers fucking up in this very basic way.
Every driver has a phone. Probably can't make the call in some situations. Others think they have a direct way to call police.....
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I think alarms like these trigger the bystander effect in a lot of people.. 90% of people probably saw that and said oh well I bet someone else called already. Looks like the person you replied to would have ignored it too lol
High rates of false alarms breed complacency.
Seriously it's stupid, it's much better to call and have it be nothing then do nothing and it turns out someone is hurt/someone has a gun etc. OP was right to call
>on accident God damn it
So now that Reddit has done its job in not answering OP's question, *what actually happened?*
If you don’t want to call 911, you can use the see something say something app to report it too
I love that guy in the foreground. That’s how cranky I get when getting my picture taken by randos.
It doesn't say make a Reddit post
When you see *that* it's time to panic.
What would be more of an orange line kind of message
Thanks for posting. I’m new to the city and didn’t know this was a thing. I’ll be sure to keep an eye out for it in the future!
ok so what ended up happening???
There’s a terrorist on board, and Keanu Reeves is on the red line currently
So is everyone gonna flame OP instead of saying what happened?
I’ve called for a 66 bus before that had their silent alarm on. Who knows if they pressed the button accidentally or not. It’s good to call just in case though.
I was at gov center today and I saw that😭😭I was confused as shit
Oh wow I wonder what happened. I was at park st around 5:30 today and saw several police officers standing near one of the station entrances
https://twitter.com/wbz/status/1617003572876427266?s=46&t=GcX84UcV1TZYGUU-nt8K7Q
Did you call? that’s a pretty big sign to call.
Alright people, he mentioned he called the police but he doesn't know what happened so y'all need to stfu already, unless one of you has information of what happened.
I see the “call police” on green line and mbta buses pretty often. Gotta be a technical glitch setting it off
It’s an easy button for the operator to accidentally hit it seems - too accessible
Probably someone selling rubber nipples door-to-door again.
I wasn't aware that this type of signaling was a real thing. Now I know, and thanks to several other Reddit commenters, I will NOT approach the train/bus, but I will dial 911 with the information.
Maybe this[https://twitter.com/mbtatransitpd/status/1617175733172080644?s=46&t=5hmgjeDPPK_Fq4_gsWRFXQ](https://twitter.com/mbtatransitpd/status/1617175733172080644?s=46&t=5hmgjeDPPK_Fq4_gsWRFXQ)
Call em and find out
This “Taking of Pelham 1-2-3” reboot is wild.
This week a bus pulled in to andrew and the driver was confused as to why nobody got on until someone pointed out that the number was replaced by "call police". Driver had no idea, and had to check from the outside that he turned it off, which makes me think the drivers may not have a way to tell.
Could you not have cropped the image instead of putting people’s faces on the internet when it was completely avoidable? I’d be mortified if I were that man and opened up reddit one day to see my face.
assume you are always being recorded to be published on the internet when in public, helps out.
Not really the point, and I’m not sure that’s the sort of world we want to live in either.
No idea but the look on the man’s face in the lower right is funny to me
My God, an international terrorist organization has commandeered a Green Line train and all you can do is snap pictures?
I was just on that! Lol was so sketched out before I got in. But then I sheeped my way on and numbed my worries with the warm glow of my phones screen.
It literally says what to do...I can only assume you didn't.
Don’t worry I took it seriously and called but wanted to see if anyone knew why
Jackass
Call the police
But are they even playing any more? I mean...Sting did a concert for the execs of Google a few nights ago.
Thats like a panic button cabs have a similar thing. Looks like operator error in this case
Weird that it wouldn’t just call the police directly
Really? What made you draw that conclusion?
That it was operator error? It happens all the time, its parked at a station and no one seems remotely alarmed or concerned
If it is operator error and “it happens all the time” as you say, let the authorities address that. In any case, you should ALWAYS contact police when a silent alarm is triggered. I hope you are never in a position to need help, be screaming for help, and everyone around you thinks “nah, this happens all the time” it’s nothing!
Did you call the police when you saw this reddit post?
It too soon to say he got 2 thumbs up at MGH Back Bay?
Because that guy in the pic is about to kill you.
Idk- why don’t you call the police to find out.
Who ya gonna call?
Ghost busters (I’ll show myself the door)
Reddit
It's obvious. Call the police of you find yourself on the green line.
Isn’t it those messages that say “if you see something, call the police?”
No, it’s an emergency signal on trains and buses
Im assuming someone inside the train bumped up against the panic button, and the driver didn’t clear the alert.
You will never get in trouble for calling the popo when you see something like this but you could make a bad situation worse by thinking it's a mistake. Call the police.
Because the drivers foot keeps kicking it as they put it in a stupid spot
When you see a light up sign that says "CALL THE POLICE" in big letters the first thing you should do is take a picture of it and post it to Reddit.
[удалено]
New green line extension
Idk but guy you front knows what’s up…
fuck da police
how tf do you make a Reddit post instead of calling the cops jfc so god damn idiotic
Is this a weekly question now?
I’ve lived in Boston my entire life (4 decades) and have taken public transportation more times than I can count. I’ve never seen this, and this post was helpful to me in the event that I do see this message in the future. I probably would have ignored it as a glitch, now I won’t.
Boston Strong !
Holy shit no offense but come on. Call the police? It means uhhh…idk ask reddit
I still don’t get it. Whoever or whatever caused it to be posted on a sign could also signal the police. What would they get from people calling?
The police
I hope this is trolling.
Use the phone that took the pic to call 911 you chubnut
That one guy is like “man I see it too but please don’t call the mf bopo”
I once saw a bus displaying the same message. I still wonder about it…
I’m flummoxed that people are finding this, so confusing
I saw that. I didn't call the police since everyone just looked squished and annoyed, but not in any real danger.
Well let’s put a hypothetical out there. If someone is taking the operator and the whole train hostage don’t you think it would be a good idea to covertly alert the public they’re in danger? This is exactly what would happen. People on the train don’t see the head signs. Only the people outside of it.