> But honestly, there are LOTS of bridges around here. It ain't going to stop someone who wants to do it.
It does, actually. Plenty of examples to prove it. The best is the Duke Ellington and Taft bridges in Washington DC - the bridges are right next to each other, but everyone jumped off the Ellington bridge because the view was better. So they put up a suicide barrier on the Ellington bridge. You wouldn't think this would work - you'd think people would go right over to the Taft bridge a hundred meters away and jump off it instead, but they don't. The overall suicide rate in DC went down, by almost exactly the number of people who used to jump off the Duke Ellington bridge every year. The number of people jumping off the Taft Bridge - or any other bridge - stayed the same
( ... )
And someday, they'll even put a barrier on the Aurora bridge in Seattle, which is second only to the Golden Gate bridge for number of suicides. I hope.
If I wanted to commit suicide by bridge, I would definitely walk out to the middle. Further ways to drop and less likely for intervention from someone either side telling me to step down.
30 deaths a year doesn't seem like a reputation to jump off of it. To me, it seems like the highest pedestrian accessible bridge in the area. Despite the number of successful freeway overpass jumpers in the area, it would still seem too uncertain of death to me to not try for something more definite were I to be in that mindset.
I think adding more people on a suicide hotline would help more people than a bridge net. The *one* time I called one, the line was fast busy.
EVERYTHING I've read about suicide (had a suicidal friend a few years ago, so did a lot of reading up on it) concludes that the existing suicide prevention measures on the Golden Gate Bridge are remiss. From what I understand, suicidal urges are periodic, but impediments to suicide are extremely effective. Suicide prevention experts have been lobbying for years to raise the height of the rails on the Golden Gate Bridge, but it never gets anywhere because people think it looks ugly.
They don't publish the jump tallies anymore, because it was encouraging people to hit certain numbers, but the Golden Gate Bridge is one of the most popular places in the world to commit suicide.
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It does, actually. Plenty of examples to prove it. The best is the Duke Ellington and Taft bridges in Washington DC - the bridges are right next to each other, but everyone jumped off the Ellington bridge because the view was better. So they put up a suicide barrier on the Ellington bridge. You wouldn't think this would work - you'd think people would go right over to the Taft bridge a hundred meters away and jump off it instead, but they don't. The overall suicide rate in DC went down, by almost exactly the number of people who used to jump off the Duke Ellington bridge every year. The number of people jumping off the Taft Bridge - or any other bridge - stayed the same ( ... )
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30 deaths a year doesn't seem like a reputation to jump off of it. To me, it seems like the highest pedestrian accessible bridge in the area. Despite the number of successful freeway overpass jumpers in the area, it would still seem too uncertain of death to me to not try for something more definite were I to be in that mindset.
I think adding more people on a suicide hotline would help more people than a bridge net. The *one* time I called one, the line was fast busy.
Reply
They don't publish the jump tallies anymore, because it was encouraging people to hit certain numbers, but the Golden Gate Bridge is one of the most popular places in the world to commit suicide.
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