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Comment by dkokelley | Hacker News Reader

I'm really not sure how I feel about these things. On one hand, these are great escapades, and they result in fantastic pictures. I do like seeing "forbidden and forgotten areas". On the other hand, I would never want to encourage anyone to do something like this. It's illegal for a reason. The reason is not just your own safety. If he had fallen on to the road side of the bridge, not only would he die, but he would risk the safety of others driving across the bridge. Even in the best-case where he doesn't hit a vehicle or cause an accident, the morning commute is screwed up because of what on the surface appears to be another suicide.

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People committing suicide would tend to jump off the bridge into the water? There are, very roughly, one person committing suicide per fortnight from the Goldengate Bridge.

One idea to slow down that number o fdeaths is to install a big net. It'll hurt when people land on it, and that might be enough to snap them out of the impulsive decision to end their lives.

The net would cost about $45m.

Some people might feel that spending the money on mental health services and suicide prevention services would be a better investment.

(http://www.nytimes.com/2011/08/26/us/26bcjames.html?pagewant...)

Superficially it's obvious why Fresno CA has such a high suicide rate (14.8 per 100,000) - low employment, high crime, staggering drug (especially meth) addiction. But Sacramento CA has higher rates of suicide (22.7 per 100,000), and it's not as easy to work out why.

I read something about How The Mapo Bridge In South Korea Has Stopped People Committing Suicide [1]. They basically have illuminated signs that say encouraging things to people who are thinking about jumping. Dropped the suicide rate by 77%.

[1] http://www.sickchirpse.com/mapo-bridge-suicide/

I'm genuinely curious how a net to go under the bridge would cost $45m. How?

I've only been there once, but I'm picking that harsh weather, height and the need for attachment points outside the existing bridge make it expensive. I'm not at all surprised that it is expensive, but I am that it hasn't been done yet.

A primary complaint, believe it or not, is that the net would hurt the aesthetics of the bridge.

People have been pushing for a net for years, but a variety of (lame) excuses keep conspiring against it. The reality is that there's no really good reason to keep from doing it...just a lot of little bad ones that seem to win.

It's not really our job to protect everyone from themselves though and adding a net not only would hurt the aesthetic of the bridge, but serve as a constant, dreary reminder of death. In addition, adding a net is simply a small measure at treating a symptom without affecting the cause. Lastly, what would adding a net solve? The people who wanted to kill themselves by jumping off now know there is a net to stop it, so they decide to kill themselves some other way instead.

How about, "The net is estimated to cost $45m and California is broke"?

How about "it's not society's job to keep people (even insane ones) from doing what they want with their own bodies"?

You can take this to apply to everything from the inside of one's uterus to hurling oneself off a bridge.

It is societies job to look after everyone, especially the unwell. I do recall there being a handrail, so someone believes in some safety.

I feel like if we are building a net to catch people trying to commit suicide, we are "looking after everyone" the complete wrong way, not to mention way too late.

Handrails are to prevent accidents by people not trying to hurl themselves off.

You are confusing safety with coercion.

I get your first statement, however If someone falls off due to poor sight/bad knees/inner ear problems or someone jumps off due to a temporary depressive illness, I see little difference. All relate to medical problems. It's not that I'm rabidly anti suicide - I am pro suicide rights - but I'd hardly call a net coercion. Can you explain this for me? Grafton Bridge in Auckland has put up Perspex screens for suicide prevention (and the safely of those under the bridge) instead of nets. http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Grafton_Bridge

I don't feel like "45 million dollars is too much to spend on a device to save the lives of people who are doing everything in their power to die" is a lame excuse, but whatever.

"the bridge" is a fantastic documentary which looks into issues, and talks with some of the people who lost family to depression/suicide on the Golden Gate bridge. Well worth watching

[edit] http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0799954

The Golden Gate Bridge is huge - 2700 meters long and 250 meters high, with high winds and fog. That's a pretty large undertaking.

I'm actually really curious if anyone has done some sort of study into the relationship between Maslow's hierarchy of needs and suicide. I honestly wouldn't be surprised if suicide rates go up as you go up the pyramid because you're afforded more time for existential thought.

Freakanomics did a good podcast on suicide. This question was addressed at least a little, by talking about the apparent rareness of suicide in some cultures: http://www.freakonomics.com/2011/08/31/new-freakonomics-radi...

Some Googling turned up this study, http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/16420711, "The association between suicide and the socio-economic characteristics of geographical areas: a systematic review". At first I thought their conclusions were clear, but I find I have difficulty understanding subsequent sentences with respect to each other. I'm afraid I would need to read the whole paper to understand exactly what their conclusions are.

not sure what this had to do the parent comment, but if there's a net, people will find other ways. It's like making prostitution illegal, did it really cut down on the number of people having sex? Of course not.

As said by Scott, suicide is very rarely a well thought-out action. It's something that is decided on a whim and often passes just as quickly.

Drug companies in Britain experimented by putting pills in blister packs instead of bottles and found out that suicide rates dropped dramatically. Apparently, the amount of time it took to pull each individual pill out of the blister pack was enough to make people think about what they're doing.

The same thing applies with bridges. There have been many efforts to put signs up and obstructive railings in place. They won't deter a really determined person, but they do the next best thing - the people who aren't sure are shown that it's a decision rather than a done deal. And that's what they need at that moment in time.

I'd never considered blister packs as an impulse control measure before; I had assumed it was for ease of dosing/packaging, and perhaps longer shelf-life (The US approach of (until relatively recent automation improvements) manually counting pills into a bottle always struck me as inefficient).

A short transcript[1] from the podcast agrees though, and there's a currently previous[2] and ongoing[3] research into packaging/impulsivity.

There's some other research as well that shows that restricting pack size of OTC paracetamol/acetaminophen reduces suicides, too[4]

[1] http://www.freakonomics.com/2011/05/17/why-cant-you-buy-a-bi...

[2] http://oai.dtic.mil/oai/oai?verb=getRecord&metadataPrefix=ht...

[3] http://clinicaltrials.gov/ct2/show/NCT01118208

[4] http://www.plosmedicine.org/article/info%3Adoi%2F10.1371%2Fj...

But this effectively removes the chance that it'll kill you. Getting to the GG Bridge is not a simple thing to do... If you're going to kill yourself, the impulse is there, sure, but you had to go pretty far out of your way to do it. With a bottle of pills, many people have a bottle of pills from a previous surgery or something sitting around. Way easier to get wasted while depressed and make a rash decision to down the bottle than it is to make the trek all the way out to the middle of the Golden Gate.

You're making the mistake of assuming that someone who is going to end their life is thinking in any kind of rational way.

They're not. This isn't a problem that you can't apply normal logic to. Instead you need to look at what works and copy that - and last-minute disruption/difficulty works.

Here is an example of a suicidal thought process, from my own experience: "I don't want to die, but given the situation I'm in I can't see any other option. I don't want to do it. I just need a reason to keep going."

When you can't find that reason, you do something fatal. The reason can be anything, the smallest thing can keep you going.

Some people kill themselves for different reasons, and I think people that have never suffered from depression have that kind of suicide in mind. The guy who kills himself rather than live with the shame of blah blah blah. (Or for the insurance money for his family.)

That's not a depression-related suicide, and I suspect they're pretty rare. Someone with depression isn't thinking that rationally. If they were, they wouldn't be suicidal in the first place.

But removing the ability to kill oneself by installing a net removes the possibility. If you're going to kill yourself, you don't try to do it via a means that has no chance of success. With a net installed, all the chance of success is removed, so people aren't going to try it there. You don't hear about failed suicide attempts jumping off a car onto grass. And I've battled with severe depression and alcoholism in my past. I spent nearly half a year thinking I was going to end my life every day and instead crawled into a bottle. You're right in that we're not thinking rationally, but at the same time, irrational "I must escape" thoughts also don't drive you to say "hey, I know, let me go way out of my way to attempt suicide in a way that I know will not work."

edit: if anything, more people will probably jump, but not to kill themselves. thrillseekers might do it just for the hell of it (despite the fact there will likely be a big penalty)

From what I have heard and read (see the Freakanomics podcast I link to in this thread), suicide is seen among those that study it as having a large impulse component.

People want to have sex. They do not want to commit suicide, but are driven to it.

This "they will find other ways" idea is silly, dangerous, and not supported by the facts.

I've seen an interesting television program about meth production. It's called "Breaking Bad." If anyone has an interest in the industry I suggest checking it out.

I personally climb bridges (in fact suspensions just like this) and other structures for photography now and then, and i would never do what they did without a harness and safety system preventing me, or any of my gear, from falling. Unfortunately not everyone is safe about it,

things from his post: > A slip of the foot could result in certain death. But We rolled the dice – flipped the coin. > Needing to get above the streetlights and not having time for fall protection I reminded myself to fall to the left should I slip. > https://farm6.static.flickr.com/5209/5315871803_95f74f1027_b...

Scream "this is some young kid who probably should not be doing this". Safety should always be the most important thing when doing anything like that.

Did you read onwards? He clipped himself in with safety lanyards once he was above the level of the streetlights...

"Safety lanyards" could be anything, and there's a whole lot of personal anchors that people think will protect them, but actually won't. The problem being that even in a short fall, your body will generate pretty amazing forces on static equipment.

Black Diamond did a great article about it, though they are going through some growing pains right now with a new website. The article was, "Daisy Chain Dangers"

"I hooked up [two] my shock absorbing lanyards"

You really didn't read it, did you?

"shock absorbing lanyards" could be anything, and there's a whole lot of personal anchors that people think will protect them, but actually won't.

Better?

How could he have been more specific that he was using an adequate safety device? Were you expecting him to include the brand?

If he attached the lanyards to anything other than a harness, a fall would end poorly. I've seen people mis-rig harnesses - actual paid professionals who got hurried and got stupid - in ways that would have maimed or killed them if they fell.

A snapshot of his setup would have been nice. Not so much for the gear Nazis, but to keep gear on the radar for readers who decide to try this themselves.

unlike the total lack of gear shown in this photo https://farm6.static.flickr.com/5209/5315871803_95f74f1027_b... ?

> It's illegal for a reason.

Thou shalt remember the 11th commandment and keep it wholly.

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