# Does DC metro have inordinate number of suicides? **URL:** \ **Category:** Factual Questions\ **Created:** [November 23, 2009, 1:01pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/does-dc-metro-have-inordinate-number-of-suicides/518626 "2009-11-23T13:01:59Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 9\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![Wendell\_Wagner](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/8491ac/32.png) [@Wendell\_Wagner](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Wendell_Wagner)\ **Post date:** [November 24, 2009, 2:45pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/does-dc-metro-have-inordinate-number-of-suicides/518626/21 "2009-11-24T14:45:25Z")
The London Metro has about four times as many passenger rides a year. It has 50 suicides to Washington’s 6 per year. So per passenger ride it has less: > **[List of metro systems](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Metro_systems_by_annual_passenger_rides)** > > This list of metro systems includes electrified rapid transit train systems worldwide. In some parts of the world, metro systems are referred to as subways, U-Bahn, undergrounds, or through various acronyms such as MRT. As of 28 August 2023\[update\], 195 cities in 62 countries have a metro system. > The London Underground first opened as an underground railway in 1863 and its first electrified underground line opened in 1890, making it the world's oldest metro system. The Shanghai Metro is the... The New York Subway has about eight times as many passenger rides per year. It has 26 suicides a year. So Washington has more suicides per passenger ride. The Tokyo Subway has sixteen times as many passenger rides per year. I can’t find any more exact count of suicides than “hundreds.” Say that it’s 300. Then Tokyo has more suicides per passenger ride than Washington. The Paris metro has about seven times as many passenger rides per year. It has 24 suicides. So Paris has less suicides per passenger ride. I would guess then that Washington has about average amount of suicides per passenger rides per year. If someone wants to find all the proper statistics and calculate them, go ahead. I suppose that we should note that suicide is more common by all methods in Japan. This is a complicated matter, and apparently nobody has bothered to gather all the statistics in one place. ---
**Author:** ![Mr\_Smashy](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/2bfe46/32.png) [@Mr\_Smashy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mr_Smashy)\ **Post date:** [November 24, 2009, 7:32pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/does-dc-metro-have-inordinate-number-of-suicides/518626/22 "2009-11-24T19:32:45Z")
Plus, in the US the sad folks have other options (a lot easier to get a gun here than say, Japan). The better stat is % of suicides on the metro/total suicides per capita ---
**Author:** ![Kid\_A\_1](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/ed8c4c/32.png) [@Kid\_A\_1](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Kid_A_1)\ **Post date:** [November 25, 2009, 5:03am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/does-dc-metro-have-inordinate-number-of-suicides/518626/23 "2009-11-25T05:03:16Z")
[Toronto](http://suicideandmentalhealthassociationinternational.org/stopsuitrain.html): > [@](#): > > Torontonians know little about subway suicides because, as a rule, the media, police and TTC do not publicize the tragedies. But Ontario Coroner’s figures suggest there have been between eight and 22 subterranean suicides in the past four years. Most Torontonians know that if there’s “a delay due to an injury at track level” (using TTC code) that means that a suicide attempt has taken place. We rarely know if it was successful. ---
**Author:** ![Tom\_Tildrum](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/e95f7d/32.png) [@Tom\_Tildrum](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Tom_Tildrum)\ **Post date:** [November 25, 2009, 2:03pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/does-dc-metro-have-inordinate-number-of-suicides/518626/24 "2009-11-25T14:03:14Z")
I was once aboard an Amtrak train that ran over someone. It was disconcerting; we could feel the impact, and the conductor confirmed that we had hit a person. ---
**Author:** ![JpnDude](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/838e76/32.png) [@JpnDude](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/JpnDude)\ **Post date:** [November 25, 2009, 2:48pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/does-dc-metro-have-inordinate-number-of-suicides/518626/25 "2009-11-25T14:48:39Z")
> [@Kid\_A](#): > > Most Torontonians know that if there’s “a delay due to an injury at track level” (using TTC code) that means that a suicide attempt has taken place. We rarely know if it was successful. In Japan, they announce most train delays because of suicide as 人身事故 (jinshinjiko) or “accident resulting in injury or death”. Recently, many Tokyo area train stations have had [blue LED lights installed on platforms](http://www.japantoday.com/category/lifestyle/view/more-tokyo-train-stations-start-using-lights-to-stem-suicides) in an effort to stem suicides. ---
**Author:** ![Wendell\_Wagner](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/8491ac/32.png) [@Wendell\_Wagner](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Wendell_Wagner)\ **Post date:** [November 25, 2009, 2:57pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/does-dc-metro-have-inordinate-number-of-suicides/518626/26 "2009-11-25T14:57:03Z")
Unfortunately, we don’t have accurate figures for Toronto, but let’s assume that the number of suicides in Toronto’s system is about 15 a year. We can see from my link that Toronto has about 60% more passenger rides a year, so Toronto has more suicides per passenger rides a year than Washington. It still appears that Washington is around average. ---
**Author:** ![Kid\_A\_1](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/ed8c4c/32.png) [@Kid\_A\_1](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Kid_A_1)\ **Post date:** [November 25, 2009, 3:28pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/does-dc-metro-have-inordinate-number-of-suicides/518626/27 "2009-11-25T15:28:30Z")
The numbers in my quote are over a 4 year period so it’s somewhere between 2 and 6 suicides a year. ---
**Author:** ![constanze](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/f9ae1b/32.png) [@constanze](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/constanze)\ **Post date:** [November 25, 2009, 11:34pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/does-dc-metro-have-inordinate-number-of-suicides/518626/28 "2009-11-25T23:34:03Z")
This (german) [wikipedia](http://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Schienensuizid) article about suicide by train (all trains in Germany) gives the total number of 5 731 suicide attempts between 1997 and 2002, with 5191 ending deadly. They identified 16 places with a high rate of suicides; 75% of those were near mental asylums. The numbers are from this (english) [study (abstract)](http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/16093307?dopt=Abstract) (fulltext) The Munich subway too uses an euphemism and calls every attempt an “accident involving a person”. The city of Vienna started a pilot project where the subway asked the media for a gentlemans agreement to downplay and not lead attention to train jumpers, and had moderate success (that is numbers declined somewhat); the city of Munich adopted this. It’s called the [Werther-Effekt](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Copycat_suicide) (after the character in a novel by Goethe who suffered from being a teenager and life being difficult, so he killed himself; after the novel appeared, dozens of young men found themselves reflected and also shot and killed themselves.). A similar gentleman’s agreement has been in effect some time now with regards to children’s and teen suicides - if a teen jumped from a building because his end-of-year grades were bad, and the newspaper spent half a page on it, several kids jumped after the article appeared, so now the newspaper only report it very very small. The side effect of train jumping is not only the delay for the passengers, but the shock for the driver. The german rail has its own sanatorium for the drivers that are affected. If a driver is on the subway for more than 10 or 20 years, it’s increasingly likly for him to also get a jumper. Because they are unable to stop in time (physics - the mass of the train on the slick rail takes a long distance to stop), they suffer severe shock and guilt, despite by now post-traumatic stress counseling and care. Many never recover. (Pop ?) psychology is that people who do suicide that way, esp. during rush hour, it’s the last attempt to have an impact on other people, to be finally noticed from the grey mass. But I don’t know if this is true - the numbers of many cases close to mental hospitals seem to suggest simply the easiest solution. ---
**Author:** ![Kid\_A\_1](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/ed8c4c/32.png) [@Kid\_A\_1](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Kid_A_1)\ **Post date:** [November 26, 2009, 5:36pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/does-dc-metro-have-inordinate-number-of-suicides/518626/29 "2009-11-26T17:36:40Z")
Bizarre coincidence…due to a Freedom of Information request by local media the TTC was forced to release stats related to the number of suicides that had occurred from 1998-2007. An average year consisted of 35 attempts, 15 of which were successful. Another bizarre coincidence, **Wendell Wagner** was right with his initial number. [Link](http://network.nationalpost.com/np/blogs/toronto/archive/2009/11/26/more-than-150-people-killed-themselves-in-subways-from-1998-2007-ttc-says.aspx) [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/does-dc-metro-have-inordinate-number-of-suicides/518626.md?page=1)