From the local newspaper.

At least 34 people leapt to their deaths from the Golden Gate Bridge in
2006, a sharp increase from the average of 19 people who commit suicide from
the majestic span each year, authorities said Wednesday.

Another 70 people tried to jump last year but were stopped by police or
bridge officials, an increase of 20 from the annual average, said Mary
Currie, spokeswoman for the Golden Gate Bridge, Highway and Transportation
District.

Marin County Coroner Ken Holmes released the number of 2006 bridge deaths on
Wednesday, a little more than a week after a 16-year-old Mill Valley boy
jumped from the landmark, focusing attention anew on the San Francisco
phenomenon.

"Tim" wrote in message
ps.com...
I'm not saying its a good thing, but 39 in 10 yrs isn't a great
crisis. Also the amount of suicides that happen per capita in the
region, I would say that bridge jumping is considerably low.


On Jan 28, 7:47 am, Harry Krause wrote:
Posted on Sun, Jan. 28, 2007

Suicide jumpers alarm Seattle office workers

The Associated Press

SEATTLE - A bridge over Seattle is becoming hazardous to the mental
health of the dot-com employees and other office workers below, who keep
seeing people jump to their deaths from the span.

Thirty-nine people over the past decade have committed suicide off the
155-foot-high Aurora Bridge - eight in 2006 alone - and counselors are
regularly brought in to help office workers deal with the shock of
seeing the leap or the bloody aftermath.

At least one woman, Sarah Edwards, drives on the left side of the street
near her office ever since a body landed on the hood of a co-worker's
car.

City and state officials, meanwhile, are adding suicide-prevention signs
and telephones in hopes of reducing the death toll.

The "suicide bridge," as the half-mile span has been occasionally called
since it was built in 1931, carries as many as 45,000 vehicles a day on
one of the main north-south highways through Seattle, passing over a
narrow channel connecting Lake Washington and Lake Union.

Some jumpers hit the water; others land on the pavement or other solid
ground. Either way, they almost always die. (One person is said to have
survived after landing in the water.)

The neighborhood beneath the bridge used to be docks and warehouses, and
the suicides went largely unnoticed. But during the technology boom of
the past two decades, it morphed into a trendy area full of office
buildings, shops and restaurants, and the bodies began to fall where
people could see them.

"They end up in our parking lot," said Katie Scharer, one of Edwards'
co-workers at Cutter & Buck, a sportswear company based in the Adobe
complex. "Nobody's ever totally used to it."

- - -

Maybe a day of sunshine up there might help raise the spirits of the
jumpers?