Should it be part of government's job to prevent suicide? Not unless it saves government money. It is expensive to coax would-be suicides off the Golden Gate Bridge, and to send bio-hazard-suited Coast Guard personnel to retrieve their mangled bodies from the San Francisco Bay. Altho a study pinpointing estimated average annual costs to date, versus annualized new barrier and suicide clean-up costs, would be most helpful. County auditor?

At any rate, an estimated 1,300 poor souls have leapt to a watery death since the bridge opened in 1937. As the New Yorker reports, that group includes the founder of Victoria's Secret, an Al Gore ally and fundraiser, and a guy protesting the Iraq War.

With suicide prevention in mind, Golden Gate Bridge District supervisors now finally seem ready to lower the bar on suicide barrier performance standards a bit, in order to get the damn thing built.

Earlier language regarding the envisioned barrier had included the daunting requirement that the device be "totally effective." No longer, if today's vote goes as expected.

The full board is expected to ratify new criteria today requiring only that a suicide barrier "impede the ability of an individual to jump."

I think I'd tweak that to, "significantly impede." Of course, if you wanna do it, you're gonna find a way. Maybe just not off the bridge. Although Mark Moran, writing in Psychiatric News, claims otherwise.

Posted by Matt Rosenberg at April 22, 2005 11:47 AM