[Prometheus The Supremo]

While the TTC does not publish stats on suicide attempts, most anecdotes I have heard puts it at or greater than once a month.

Every day, Wayne Moore hopes it won't happen again. In his 28 years as a TTC subway operator, he's been involved in 13 subway suicides. In 1999 alone, three people were crushed by Moore's train. While the first incident involved a man who fell to the track after suffering a heart attack, the second and third were suicides, leaving Moore so badly shaken he needed muscle relaxants to sleep. "But other drivers have had it worse," he says. "Some have seen as many as 25 or 26 suicides in a 30-year career."

Although the exact number is unclear, Bruce Bryer, a TTC ticket agent for 23 years, says that on average one person jumps every week. "Something needs to be done, because we can't ignore it any longer," he says.

TTC media relations officer Marilyn Bolton won't confirm the number of suicides, for fear, she says, of glamourizing the idea. She has a point, says Paul Links, chair of suicide studies at the U of T. "There is significant evidence that reporting on individual suicides can put vulnerable people at risk and lead to copycat suicides."

From Suicide & Mental Health Association International:

i've heard some gory horrific stories. if anyone wants to kill themselves, this is definitely not the way to go. sometimes the people that attempt death by subway don't always die or die right away. i'll spare all of you the details of what i've heard.

also, if you ever been on a subway train and it had to stop somewhere in a tunnel due to a delay or some other excuse, chances are that somebody just killed themselves (or tried to). if you're ever on a stopped or delayed train, don't get upset about your delay and hope that it really was equipment failure, etc.

 

[cacruden]

Yes, technical difficulties can often be someone intestines interfering with the proper function of the train equipment

On that note - good night

 

[nfitz]

You seem to have this bizzarre idea that all suicides in Japan are done by throwing themselves in front of trains. Maybe you should think a little before making accusations of what's idiotic.

I did. Suggesting that the families and victims of suicides should be charged is just about the most outrageous thing I've heard - it's the equivalent of arresting rape victims for tempting men, and charging pedestrians hit on crossing a green light, for obstructing the path of a vehicle. It's insulting, degrading, and lacks any compassion.

 

[Railization]

I did. Suggesting that the families and victims of suicides should be charged is just about the most outrageous thing I've heard - it's the equivalent of arresting rape victims for tempting men, and charging pedestrians hit on crossing a green light, for obstructing the path of a vehicle. It's insulting, degrading, and lacks any compassion.

No, you didn't. You're clearly not very objective.

Suicides are a deliberate act. Suicidals CHOOSE to jump in front of a train by their own free will, with the deliberate intent to take their own life.

Rape victims don't get raped on purpose.
Pedestrians don't get hit by cars on purpose (suicides excepted).

There's nothing outrageous about charging the families of the victims because it has been done already in other parts of the world. It isn't my idea, I've just spent a few years in a country where such a practice is applied.

Sure, it lacks compassion. But you know what, that's what we need if you want to tackle the problem head on and get some results. Platform doors are not a solution, they won't deliver the results, and are far too expensive, as I've already explained at length.

I don't see how it is insulting or degrading. I think your attitude is insulting to transit riders forced to put up with the long delays caused by selfish suicidals that think they have the right to hold up 10s of thousands (even 100s of thousands of people at peak) of people just so that they can kill themselves, and expect to not have any responsibility for the incident.

It's degrading to the TTC to expect them to put with suicides on a weekly basis. It's not degrading to the suicidals.

There's a cost, and those thinking about throwing themselves in front of a train had better ask themselves if they want to burden their families with that costs.

They can throw themselves infront of a truck on the 401 instead. I have no patience nor sympathy for inconsiderate suicidals. There are plenty of ways to kill yourself, painlessly I might add (carbon monoxide is your friend), that does not inconveniences 10s of thousands of people.

It works both ways, too. Anybody that pushes somebody onto the tracks can, in addition to the jail time for murder, be required to pay for the costs of disruption.

 

[Ruddy Ruddy]

No, you didn't. You're clearly not very objective.

Suicides are a deliberate act. Suicidals CHOOSE to jump in front of a train by their own free will, with the deliberate intent to take their own life.

Just so you know, since you're probably going to continue on the topic, the word for a person who commits or attempts suicide is "suicide", the same as the word for the act itself. "Suicidal" is an adjective, not a noun.

 

[Railization]

Just so you know, since you're probably going to continue on the topic, the word for a person who commits or attempts suicide is "suicide", the same as the word for the act itself. "Suicidal" is an adjective, not a noun.

K, thanks, noted. I thought suicide was a verb only.

 

[Ruddy Ruddy]

K, thanks, noted. I thought suicide was a verb only.

I hate to go around correcting people like that, but I still do it, so thanks for being cool about my pedantic nature.

Now, I did want to offer a counterpoint to your argument about how if we were going to put platform doors on subway platforms, we should put them on bus and streetcar platforms too, though I'm not totally sure it was seriously intended. Obviously, the cost would be prohibitive to install platform doors everywhere in the system, but that doesn't mean that we shouldn't do it anywhere.

As noted previously, buses and streetcars can brake more efficiently than subways, but I also wanted to point out that, unlike with buses and streetcars, if you're pushed in front of a subway, you're being pushed into a pretty deep trench, which hinders escape (though, fortunately, it doesn't prevent it, as the two lucky teens who rolled out of the way in the recent incident proved). Also, streetcars are safer than subways in that they're rounded at the front, which can act kind of like a cowcatcher in that someone can be hit but safely bounce right off without injury. I know this because I was actually dumb enough to be hit by a streetcar last year!

 

[Admiral Beez]

Apparently he was ordered to have a psychiatric examination. I wouldn't care too much about the technicalities of what happens to him, as long as he is kept in some kind of secure facility (prison or psych. hospital) and away from the subway.

But that's not what's going to happen. Instead, he'll have his charges dropped because he's insane, and then he'll force medicated for a week or so until he's considered harmless, and then he'll be released back onto the street with no enforced mandatory medication requirements, and in a week or two, he's insane again, and back to pushing someone else on the subway.

Remember that guy a few months ago who stabbed a random person on the Danforth? We'll, he'd done the exact same thing a few years prior, again when he was off his meds.

Really, if I had a dangerous dog, I'd be required to keep physical restrictions on him. But if you're a dangerous insane person, the system lets you out with no physical restrictions at all.

 

[Prometheus The Supremo]

There's nothing outrageous about charging the families of the victims because it has been done already in other parts of the world. It isn't my idea, I've just spent a few years in a country where such a practice is applied.

Sure, it lacks compassion. But you know what, that's what we need if you want to tackle the problem head on and get some results. Platform doors are not a solution, they won't deliver the results, and are far too expensive, as I've already explained at length.



There's a cost, and those thinking about throwing themselves in front of a train had better ask themselves if they want to burden their families with that costs.

They can throw themselves infront of a truck on the 401 instead. I have no patience nor sympathy for inconsiderate suicidals. There are plenty of ways to kill yourself, painlessly I might add (carbon monoxide is your friend), that does not inconveniences 10s of thousands of people.

1) if something is done somewhere else in the world, it automatically becomes non-outrageous?

2) families should be responsible? even for something that might not actually have anything to do with them?

3) do you think most people that throw themselves in front of a train would care about a financial burden (suicide fine) on their families as a consequence of their suicide if they don't even care about the emotional burden brought on by the actual death its self?

4) if these people are jumping in front of trains, they likely don't have cars to CO poison themselves with. you know, these jumpers don't have all the freedoms such as tailpipe CO suicide that car ownership brings.


5) you think someone throwing themselves in front of a car or truck on the 401 won't inconvenience tens of thousands of people?


6) if you're so concerned about the inconvenience, maybe you can write a letter to the ttc asking them to ignore jumpers and keep the trains going. have them clean up the mess when the subway shuts down. tell them that you're a really busy guy and you can't wait 20 minutes for a crew to collect the contents of a former human. try to sell them the idea that since your time is so precious, maybe you can collect some of the newly available body parts and sell them on the black market to make up for your lost productivity.

 

[ganjavih]

Perhaps Railization would volunteer to collect these fines from the families. I'm sure it would be a rewarding job.

But if you're a dangerous insane person, the system lets you out with no physical restrictions at all.

That's simply not true. There is a system in place to forcably confine and treat people if necessary. It's an imperfect system as some people slip through the cracks and some people are mistakenly released, but there is a system.

There are a lot of mentally ill people out there, but it's difficult to predict which ones will become violent.

 

[nfitz]

You're clearly not very objective.

And your clearly ignorant.

There's nothing outrageous about charging the families of the victims because it has been done already in other parts of the world.

It's the most obscene suggestion to improve transit in Toronto I have ever heard. Perhaps we should carry out other practices that are done in other parts of the world, such as executing women who have sex out of wedlock, our cutting the clitorises off little girls.

I don't see how it is insulting or degrading.

Then I suggest you get a education before you start making any further prejudiced comments on mental illness.

Next thing you'll be claiming that suicide barriers don't do anything to reduce the suicide rate! LOL

 

[doady]

There's nothing outrageous about charging the families of the victims because it has been done already in other parts of the world.

There's nothing outrageous about making homosexuality a crime and putting homosexuals to death because it has been already in other parts of the world.

 

[kEiThZ]

We spend tons of cash building suicide barriers on bridges...I don't see how it's disproportionate to do the same on the TTC. Indeed, lost productivity is probably higher when someone is pushed on to or jumps on the subway tracks instead of somebody who jumped onto the 401 or the DVP.

 

[ShonTron]

If we apply the methods used in the Japanese system where the family of the victim is charged a fine for the service disruptions caused by the suicide, then the costs of such disruptions to the system are re-couped and people will think twice about committing suicide that way because of the financial burden they'd place on their families.

Cold? Yes, but it's effective, and we need something that is effective both in results and in cost. Platform doors are far too expensive a solution for what we're talking about. Since we're not creating new service with platform doors, the costs would never be re-couped. And suicides would still happen around Rosedale, Davisville, Warden-VP, Kipling-Islington, Keele, etc., there's no lack of places it can happen.

Wow. That is one of the most callous remarks I have read on UT for a while. I can't even think that such a cold scheme would even be effective in preventing suicides.

 

[khris]

If we apply the methods used in the Japanese system where the family of the victim is charged a fine for the service disruptions caused by the suicide, then the costs of such disruptions to the system are re-couped and people will think twice about committing suicide that way because of the financial burden they'd place on their families.

I do not think so. Japan can keep their crazy ways in Japan.