Brett Weinstein
As I suspected when the New York State Thruway Authority announced it was going to place four phones on the Governor Malcolm Wilson Tappan Zee Bridge so that would be suicides would have an automatic connection to suicide prevention counselors, the phones would never be used.
Four people have killed themselves by jumping of the Tappan Zee Bridge since the phones were installed, three of them this month. Not one of them used the phones. Did anyone really think they would?
While the New York State Authority has recognized the “symbiotic relationship” between Peregrine Falcons and the Tappan Zee bridge, it has yet to recognize the same relationship between the bridge and suicide. If the authority had recognized the relationship, they would have built suicide prevention railings, which do work, instead of phones that don’t work.
The Authority has only had 53 years to get the job done.
3 Comments
February 19, 2009 at 8:41 am
[...] Sources: NYSDOT, Journal News Photo Credit: Upstream Magazine [...]
July 9, 2009 at 5:13 pm
“If the authority had recognized the relationship, they would have built suicide prevention railings, which do work, instead of phones that don’t work.”
The main reason for not building a railing would be liability. If the thruway put the railings up and someone attempted to climb over to commit suicide; but instead falls back to the roadway and gets injured, the thruway would be held liable for the persons injuries and probably get sued.
July 18, 2009 at 11:37 am
The railing they installed recently (in the past 16 months) is a suicide prevention railing.