Suicide bridge

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As a suicide prevention initiative, this sign on the Golden Gate Bridge promotes a special telephone that connects to a crisis hotline.

Suicide bridge is a bridge used frequently to commit suicide. In general, such bridges are also prominent landmarks. The Golden Gate Bridge in San Francisco is generally considered to have had more suicides than any other in the world with more than a thousand over its history.^{[citation needed]} In 2005, documentary filmmaker Eric Steel set off controversy by revealing that he had tricked the bridge committee into allowing him to film the Golden Gate for months, and had captured nearly 20 suicides on tape for his documentary The Bridge. Another bridge that has a high incidence rate for suicide is the the Duke Ellington Bridge in Washington, D.C.^[1]. In Seattle, Washington, in the last decade 39 people jumped off the Aurora Bridge to their deaths, nine in 2006.^[2]

To reach such locations, those with the intention to commit suicide must often walk long distances to reach the point where they finally decide to jump, which many skeptics argue is proof that this means of suicide is indeed premeditated. There are a number of cases of people travelling over the San Francisco-Oakland Bay Bridge to reach the Golden Gate by automobile, for instance.^[3] While this may not make utilitarian sense, it is consistent with hypotheses that people considering suicide may sometimes choose a specific scenario for their suicide rather than suicide by any comparable method per se.

Suicide prevention advocates believe that suicide by bridge is more likely to be impulsive than other means and that barriers can have a significant effect on reducing the incidence of suicides by bridge. One study in Washington D.C., showed that setting barriers in one bridge, the Duke Ellington Bridge, did not cause an increase of suicides at the nearby Taft Bridge.^[4]Families of victims and groups that help the mentally ill thus often lobby governments to erect such barriers. One new barrier is the Luminous Veil on the Prince Edward Viaduct in Toronto, once considered the world's second most deadly bridge with over 400 jumps on record.^[5] The Sydney Harbour Bridge, Jacques Cartier Bridge in Montreal, and the Arroyo Seco Bridge in Pasadena, California are other bridges that had formerly had unobstructed panoramic views that have seen barriers erected.

Special telephones are sometimes installed at such bridges, with connections to crisis hotlines.

San Francisco supervisor Tom Ammiano, who also is a representative on the Golden Gate Bridge, Highway and Transportation District, proposed in March 2005 to fund a study on erecting a suicide barrier on the bridge.^[6] Jump for Life is an alternative proposal to allow bungee jumping from the bridge structure, with proceeds to help fund suicide prevention.