I’m not sure what the relevant data is, either. I saw one cite that indicated about 30 percent of people who attempt suicide try again within a year, and 10 percent of peopel who threaten or attempt suicide ultimately kill themselves. It’s possible that analysis of a more specific group would be more helpful, but I don’t know where to look. I do think it’s clear that a lot of people who try to kill themselves don’t go through with it. And there are probably psychological reasons to discourage suicides from the bridge that make it more complex than ‘oh, they’re just trying to move it someplace else.’ People who try to jump off a bridge are certainly passing up more convenient methods of suicide and it seems sensible to me that if they’re stopped from killing themselves there, they won’t do it somewhere else.
It’s a lot of money to prevent some suicides based solely on their location without the assistance needed to reduce the chance of the suicides occurring elsewhere, don’t you think? Since there is obviously no way to know, how many of those GGB suicides do you *think *would decide suicide wasn’t an option if the GGB was unavailable to carry it out.
My personal opinion is that a barrier on the GGB wouldn’t sufficiently impact suicide rates in general to justify the cost. If suicide prevention is truly the goal, the money is better spent elsewhere as it is more likely to have a greater impact if it’s not focused on a single location.
Ah, here.
(bolding mine) and
And the money quote:
Here’s the dichotomy as I see it: Spend the money on suicide prevention programs or spend more and more erecting barriers on various bridges as jumpers find alternate sites to jump. The second choice does nothing to impact suicide by other means.
I’m not opposed to some other kind of assistance, and since I can’t tell how the barrier on the bridge would be funded, I don’t know that it has to be one or the other. It shouldn’t be.
I don’t think an uninformed guess would shed a lot of light on anything. If around 25 people jump off the bridge every year, I think it’s reasonable to say a barrier might make a significant difference over time. I can say that there have been very few suicides from the Empire State Building since a barrier was placed on the observatory floor in 1947. Of course I don’t know how you calculate how many people might’ve jumped from the ESB and killed themselves somewhere else instead.
That’s a very compelling cite.
In a city where there are many bridges equally appealing to the one in question, it’s not surprising that would-be jumpers shift to a different bridge. In places where there are not similar alternatives, that might not be the case at all - such as the city where I live, where the barriers were recently placed on the only jump-able bridge.
It’s a dumb idea.
The road to hell is paved with good intentions.
There are suicide phones on the bridge.
I don’t know how many of you have visited and walked the bridge, but it’s one of the few bridges in the United States that is actually a destination not merely a form of getting over a river or canyon.
People specifically go there. Perhaps maybe the Brooklyn Bridge or the Seven Mile Bridge here in the Keys are other examples.
I’ve been to SF lots of times and it’s always fun to walk over the bridge.
The thing is, if your suicidal, and you go to that bridge, I guarantee you’ll feel worse. Because you’re feeling awful and you go to this bridge and your surrounded by hundreds of other people walking over this bridge and they’re all having fun. They’re all laughing and talking and there you are, the pathetic loser, the only one on this bridge that is feeling bad.
It really is a fun thing to walk over the bridge. I could see how if you were suicidal being on that bridge would push you over the edge. Sure he could kill himself by jumping off any bridge or anything, but if you’re on most other bridges you’re not going to be surrounded by a lot of other people, all who are laughing and enjoying themselves, only to make you that much sadder, because you can’t have that kind of happiness
I would favor putting a barrier. Aesthetics be damned, people are more important that the look of a bridge.
I think that’s it - the bridge’s very existence can lead people to suicide attempts who might not have tried it at all otherwise.
And there is no rule of architecture that says a barrier has to be unattractive, any more than a wheelchair ramp has to be. I agree this is something that needs to be done.
I can’t imagine this is true in any significant number that differs from any other jump site. I wonder how many of those people who did jump of the GG had previous attempts or history of suicide ideation.
Why would this particular bridge inspire such despair that would create suicidal tendencies in an otherwise not suicidal individual?
By making somebody who’s considering it, and on the edge of doing it, think it would be a romantic and tragic place for the deed, while most other places wouldn’t give them that last little push and they’d back down.