New bridge “must get suicide barriers”
A coroner’s report suggests that the new Champlain bridge should be equipped with suicide barriers like the ones on the Jacques‑Cartier, after a man leapt from the bridge last May.
I looked back and find that in 2019, Le Devoir reported on suicide barriers being installed as part of the original design.
dhomas 16:32 on 2023-01-27 Permalink
SNC-Lavalin cheaped out and didn’t deliver the project as specified? Insert surprised Pikachu meme.
qatzelok 20:54 on 2023-01-27 Permalink
We have legal assisted-suicide in Canada now. Why not provide an assisted-suicide kiosque at each end of the bridge instead of ruining another bridge with an ugly metallic cage structure?
CE 00:13 on 2023-01-28 Permalink
We’ve got a real edgelord on our hands here.
Sprocket 12:13 on 2023-01-28 Permalink
That is quite the take.
qatzelok 12:41 on 2023-01-28 Permalink
In an article about the same thing in Radio-Canada, Louis Coté is of the same opinion as I am in this thread.
https://ici.radio-canada.ca/nouvelle/1951725/barriere-suicide-pont-champlain-coroner
Kate 15:53 on 2023-01-28 Permalink
That link says nothing about your edgy position, qatzelok.
It’s well known that suicide is often an opportunistic act. People in trouble sometimes act on impulse, and it’s been shown that if you stop them there, what they don’t do is immediately go in search of an alternative. They find some way to go on.
Nudging them to make an end to themselves is not the way to handle this situation.
And that’s leaving out two important aspects: bereaved families and friends, and the experience of those who find the bodies or have to clean up after them. You’re throwing them all to the wolves.
qatzelok 21:28 on 2023-01-28 Permalink
Those are all good points, Kate. I in no way encourage anyone to do themselves in, and I am not strongly in favor of government assisted suicide.
**But… Back when the Jacques Cartier bridge was pining for its suicide barrier, a friend of mine an I disagreed about its pertinence.
Friend said it was a good idea. I disagreed, saying that society is supposed to give people something to live for, and NOT to remove any way of committing suicide from its immizerated masses. He disagreed with me, as if to say that society is not supposed to give anyone a reason to live.
dhomas 06:07 on 2023-01-29 Permalink
We CAN do both, you know that, right? Give people a good standard of living and reasons to live, all the while removing easy access to messy suicide during periods of weakness. It’s not one or the other.
qatzelok 13:14 on 2023-01-29 Permalink
dhomas, I want to believe that “we can have it all.”
But in Cuba – where people have a lot less stuff than we do – there are no suicide barriers on any of the bridges, and there are many opportunities for a “messy suicide” in its infrastructure.
So it appears that the West’s mental health crisis is self inflicted (by our sick society) and trying to “foil suicide attempters” is not a lucid social direction to be taking. We need a much more profound change to our social order.
Orr 15:29 on 2023-01-29 Permalink
I once saw the afterwards of a jumper off the PJC from above, when I was crossing the bridge on the sidewalk, before the barriers were installed.
It was unforgettably sad.
Firemen held up curtains around the person, so street level people would not see it. I was not so lucky.
But it’s good to know the facts of life. And of death.