Why is this an issue?

[Jonny R]

Watching a documentary on the Golden Gate Bridge, and it says there has been a long ongoing battle over whether or not to put a suicide barrier on the bridge.

Why the battle, does anyone know?

There's a bridge in my city that used to have people jumping off it to commit suicide. Zero survival rate as it drops down to concrete or road. I once saw a guy lying dead on the road below, before the ambulance arrived...sad sight.

They eventually put a suicide barrier up there. No one objected, that we heard about anyway...

So..yeah, why the big problem with putting a barrier on the Golden Gate Bridge, at least one that is higher than the current easy to climb over 4 foot tall rail?

[newking70]

the operators say it will mess up the "aesthetics" if you will

[SpiderVenom]

Perhaps because it's longer?

Seems a little silly for me. Next step is to just walk in front of a truck, which is still plenty messy. Why waste money taking away one of a few million methods?

[Jonny R]

Seems to be a bit of a magnet though, perhaps because it's a nice location, spectacular etc...very popular. Seems like it would be easier to make the fence higher than having it subject to trends of popularity...being a favourite choice of jumpers. Trucks don't seem to have the same popularity, as far as I'm aware...

Apart from that, they're spending the money on bicycle-riding guards to try to get to potential jumpers on time, video surveillance, and coast guard services to pick up the pieces...

[Christobevii3]

What is wrong with people jumping off a bridge?

[newking70]

btw, if wanna buy the bridge let me know....i'll get you a real good price on it

[Robert Delahunt]

Probably because some morons somewhere think it's the government's job to prevent people from committing suicide by jumping off the bridge. These same people would be upset if they raised taxes to cover the cost of such a thing, I bet

I say it's dumb though. If people really want to committ suicide but those suicide barriers are in place, they'll just use some other method, that's all. Still doesn't fix the root of the problem, which is people wanting to commit suicide for whatever reason.

EDIT: I guess people blame the suicides on the government putting a bridge there lol

[Luís]

If they are gonna kill themselves they will. Why waste money on what can't be helped. Just my opinion.

[Tor]

Dunno about the landscape around the bridge, but if it's nice, I don't doubt many suicidals would like to end their lives there.. Also, the bridge has attained the status of being the place to commit suicide, which certainly helps people get off their asses to meet Saint Peter. (taken to the extremes, but..)

[Skarekrough]

Well..if you legalized Euthanasia then I'm willing to bet you'd have alot less folks attempting to jump.

Hell, I bet you could even tax Euthanasia and make a little money off of it. You don't have to staff the "retrieval team" as much so that's a little extra in the coffers as well.

Hey come on...they tax us coming...why not add the symmetry and tax us going as well?

[MikeS]

It’s an American icon. It’s also possible that it’s protected by the national register of historic places (I’d have to look it up). Leave it alone.

My opinion… people will find a way to kill themselves if they are that determined. At least by jumping off a bridge over water they are saving tax payers money by not having to pay someone to clean up the mess.

Edit: it's also worth noting that with bridges (particularly suspension bridges) it's not as simple as installing a higher rail. It'll require an extensive structural query and wind tunnel testing to calculate the impact the rail could have on the bridge. That might sound like a bunch of unnecessary work, but do a google search on the Tacoma Narrows Bridge. Find a video and watch what a little wind can do to a bridge.

[idsnowdog]

If there was suicide barrier then mothers couldn't say "if your freinds jumped off a bridge would you do it too?"

[GuitarStv]

I think that putting up a suicide barrier because there are so many people killing themselves in a certain area is really failing to address the underlying problem.

[ratherdashing]

It makes sense if the bodies land in a populated area where their presence causes other problems (car accidents etc), but from what I know of the Golden Gate Bridge you pretty much land in the ocean. I don't really see the point. It's a Band Aid solution.

[Stringer]

I read a long, very well-written piece on this subject a few years back. It made several good points on the issue, all of them thoroughly annotated. The general thesis was that the Golden Gate Bridge held a special allure for people contemplating suicide, and that most of the arguments against a barrier held very little water. One of the interesting points is that there are many, many instances of people crossing the Bay Bridge in order to jump off the Golden Gate Bridge, but there has never been a documented case of someone crossing the Golden Gate Bridge in order to jump off the Bay Bridge.

I'm going from memory here, but some points that I remember (strangely, my brother-in-law and I were just discussing this article a couple of weeks ago):

1. The Empire State Building, St. Peter’s Basilica, Sydney Harbor Bridge, Mt. Mihara, the Eiffel Tower, the Arroyo Seco Bridge, the Duomo, and the Prince Edward Viaduct in Toronto were all suicide magnets before protective barriers were put in place. After the barriers were in place the number of jumpers declined to a handful, or to none at all.

2. The fact that it is a national treasure, with an aesthetic appeal that must not be tampered with for the sake of deterring the suicidal, has not stopped them from messing with the aesthetics for other reasons. A large portion has been festooned with a cyclone fence, in order to keep people from dropping items on tourists below. By all accounts, it is an unsightly addition.

3. The costs being prohibitive is highly debatable, since several cost-effective options have been proposed over the years, and several charities have offered to offset the cost. More to the point, over the years they have spent enormous sums of money on other "safety" features at the bridge, often against dubious safety threats, when it is known that someone jumps fortnightly there. The article mentioned a $5 million barricade to keep cyclists from veering into traffic, even though there has never been a single case of a cyclist being killed on the bridge. What's more, the cost of NOT having a barricade of some sort is quite high, with surveillance and rescue missions, not to mention the private sector costs of the huge traffic jams that often result.

Of course, a lot of this is irrelevant if you believe that, if people want to kill themselves, they will. This is completely counter to most everything I have read on the subject, however, and I have read a lot. Suicidal behaviour is crisis-oriented and acute in nature. Get the person through the crisis, and chances are extremely good that he will not kill himself later. What you are dealing with is a highly impulsive act; even the slightest deterrent is often enough to stop a would-be jumper. When people cannot jump off a building, they do not go downstairs and dive into traffic. It just does not happen.

Oh, a couple of random points from that article, which I found fascinating:

-- There have been 20 to 30 people who have survived the jump from the bridge, and they all say the same thing. The first thought they had after jumping was, "I shouldn't have done thisssss!!!!!"

-- All of the survivors hit the water feet first at an angle.

[sosomething]

Wow.

That's nuts.

I have nothing to contribute.

<----------this is a worthless reply.

[Mephis]

Just put some damn razor wire on the railing at the golden gate bridge.

They won't have the guts to try to get over it, thus preventing thousands of deaths. Unless they're emo...

[Gearjoneser]

I'm going to put a business right in the middle of it. Cordless Bungee Jumping!

[JacksonMIA]

Somebody's gotta feed the sharks. Duh!

Well..if you legalized Euthanasia then I'm willing to bet you'd have alot less folks attempting to jump.

Hell, I bet you could even tax Euthanasia and make a little money off of it. You don't have to staff the "retrieval team" as much so that's a little extra in the coffers as well.

Hey come on...they tax us coming...why not add the symmetry and tax us going as well?

Do you take Visa?

[MikeS]

I'm going to put a business right in the middle of it. Cordless Bungee Jumping!

You could make a killing at that...