“The net will be placed 20 feet below the deck, and will collapse around anyone who jumped into it, making it difficult, if not impossible, for anyone to leap to their death, the report said.”
From here:
http://news.xinhuanet.com/english/2008-10/12/content_10181005.htm
That’s what I was thinking. Can’t they just crawl to the edge of the net and jump off anyway? Or break their necks in the fall to the net?
Could you bring some weights to trigger the net, then jump?
hate to be the one to spoil the party, but I don’t think its cool to make fun of suicidal folk. These people have really strong issues in their lives and I just find this all a bit distasteful.
On the other hand, I’m into skydiving. When I’m more experienced, I’d love to get into BASE jumping and I’ve been eyeing up local buildings much smaller than the golden gate 
My plan is to hang myself the day after net completion. I’ll also be holding a bucket full of tickertape saying “LOL! HAHAHA!” That’ll fly up into the air. And they can put the picture on Failblog.com.
Seriously, the state is $7B in debt and they waste their money on this crap? If you don’t want people to jump off it don’t make it accessible to pedestrians - does that not sound obvious to anyone else? What am I missing here?
You’d have a lot of pissed off people who would not appreciate closing the bridge to everyone because of a few bad apples. It may also be bad for tourism to close it. Also, it wouldn’t stop people from driving onto the bridge and abandoning their cars to jump.
There have been lots of studies showing it will. People who jump and survive almost never try again. Lots of people who jump have never been to a psychiatrist. There have been studies in other places showing that if you eliminate a popular place to commit suicide, the rate does go down.
To be serious, this has been a gigantic deal around here. There is one group wanting to put up a barrier, and another objecting to the barrier blocking the view from the bridge. I suspect this odd sounding solution was chosen to keep the view and prevent the suicide from succeeding.
I suspect it will actually pay for itself eventually. In Tampa, the similar Skyway bridge is a popular spot for suicides, and everytime someone jumps the Coast Guard ends up having to conduct a sometimes lengthy search for the remains. I can easily see a hundred or more such searches a year adding up to a million bucks annually, while if they jumped off a nice building or shot themselves in their apartments, their remains would be much more economical to recover.
Agreed. A fascinating documentary.
This http://www.nytimes.com/2008/07/06/magazine/06suicide-t.html?scp=58&sq=suicide&st=cse was a recent article on the general topic of suicide & the impulsive nature of it.
Seems pretty clear that barriers on famous places really do work at least in teh near term, saya few years.
It’s not clear to me that a susbtitute place won’t emerge over time. e.g. will some nearby cliff become the new local suicide magnet over 20 years?
I thought it was around 12, not 120; about one a month on average. (unfortunately, 1 a month since circa 1937)
Throw something over the side first, then jump.
Yeah…I’m so depressed I’m going to run out and find a 200 lb Mythbusters dummy to throw off the bridge ahead of me.
This net will also ruin one of my favorite bridge-walking activities. I used to grab a few daises(/landscape flower du jour) and drop them over the railing. It was cool to see them catch the wind currents as they fell, scooting in one direction or the other as they headed towards the water.
I see some entrepeneur selling bolt cutters from booths at either end of the bridge.
Hell, you can just walk about half a mile and jump off the gun emplacements overlooking the bridge. The “ride” would be a bit bumpy, but it’d probably still do the trick with almost as good a view.
Or you could buy a bag of kitty litter and toss it, first.
This isn’t about making fun of suicidal people; it’s about making fun of the notion that they kill themselves just because the Golden Gate Bridge is available, and they wouldn’t do it anywhere else.
But they won’t. They’ll know the net is there, and jump somewhere else, where they won’t survive.
I lived in the Bay Area for quite a while. There are LOTS of substitute places to commit suicide. Just bridges alone provide six more great spots. Just stop your car in the middle of the slow lane on the Dumbarton highrise, or anywhere along the Bay Bridge, or whereever. Step out and hop over the side. There are some awesome cliffs. In fact, as Ranchoth said, there’s a great spot overlooking the Golden Gate.
Preventing suicide is like preventing any other human behavior. You have to make people not want to do it. Putting a net under the Golden Gate Bridge is like getting rid of cigarette vending machines–people just find another place to get them.