Plans Move Ahead for Highway 154 Suicide Barrier

So good to know that all the region's transportation problems are fixed, by California Department of Transportation, and that last $900,000 should be allocated to this particular problem. We all know in the end it will cost way more than the reported amount.

If the Indy reporter knows but did not report on why this money here and now, and why, please add it. If anyone else knows, comment away here as well.

If Caltrans has a legally required pot of money specifically for suicide prevention on bridges in this Central Coast region, then this might make sense as a project, but I doubt that was the outcome and some other political ploy is happening instead. Think of how that same money could prevent another bridge from crumbling away or a road from sliding away elsewhere in the county, thereby preventing the deaths of people who actually want to live and drive in safety.

The article says that Cold Spring bridge "has the highest concentration of fatalities---suicides or otherwise---of any spot location in Caltrans District 5." That's one way to look at it.

Here's another way. Roughly speaking, over 40 years there have been 40 suicides, or one per year. There are, on average, 50 suicides annually in Santa Barbara county (*), the majority of which are committed using firearms. So the proposed project will reduce the number of suicides by... one per year. For additional context, there are also, on average, over 40 traffic fatalities annually in Santa Barbara county (70 in 2005 alone) (**).

Is reducing the number of suicides by one per year worth $600,000 (or perhaps $1 million as quoted by KCOY)?

Sources:

(*) Center for Health Statistics, "Suicide Deaths, California, 1980-1996", http://tinyurl.com/3cyk4u

(**) Fatality Analysis Reporting System (FARS), "Fatalities and Fatality Rates by County, 1994 - 2005", http://tinyurl.com/38be2w

One of the people who attended the Wednesday meeting has posted a message on a local blog, stating
that s/he "holds a PhD in social science statistics" and that "despite the claims in the studies cited during the presentation, there is no solid evidence that such barriers actually save lives. I'm happy to expand on the flaws in the studies cited in previous literature if anyone is interested, but the basic story is that we're rushing to a decision based in part on faulty information."

I responded by asking this person (who posted anonymously) to share this important information, for I am certain that CalTrans, elected public officials, and the rest of us would benefit from the information that is being offered. What is needed is a careful, comprehensive and fact-based evaluation of the merits of this proposal rather than the kind of high-pressure "sales job" that CalTrans attempted to get away with on Wednesday.

Remember this: If CalTrans and certain elected officials had had their way, there would now be an elevated freeway running through and beyond the downtown area of Santa Barbara. Nearly 40 years ago some of us challenged CalTrans and other public officials, and we prevented their rush-to-judgment because we knew it would be a costly mistake, and to me it looks like CalTrans failed to learn how we expect them to behave themselves in our community. So we are prepared to teach the lesson again in the present context.

The person cited above with expertise in social science statistics
has now added the following to the discussion on the evidence-- or lack thereof-- upon which CalTrans appears to have jumped to an unwarranted conclusion:

"As requested, I'll expand a bit on why the studies presented on Wednesday don't prove that suicide barriers on bridges save lives.

"The most common type of study demonstrates that when you but a barrier up on a bridge, the number of suicides at that bridge drops to 0. However, this doesn't prove that this saves lives, since we don't know what happened to those that would have jumped off the bridge if the barrier had not been there. That is, we might just be moving suicides to another location, or perhaps even leading people to adopt another method of suicide. We should be looking at overall suicide rates, not suicides at a specific location.

"A few studies have tried to deal with this --- for instance, one study showed that when barriers went up at the Duke Ellington Bridge in DC, the number of suicides at the nearby Taft Bridge did not increase. Good, but is the Taft Bridge the only alternative suicide site or method? Did the suicide rate in DC decline for some unrelated reasons, such as an improving economy or changing demographics? Did the suicide rate even change at all? This remains unknown.

"The last study I'll mention is the Seiden study, which tracked a number of people prevented from jumping from the Golden Gate Bridge, and showed that only around 10% went on to commit suicide. This study is widely cited as proof that a barrier would save lives, but we have a huge self-selection problem here --- did these people really intend to commit suicide, or did they simply pretend they were going to kill themselves in order to get help? In other words, we might be counting these people as "saved" when they never intended to die in the first place.

"Thus, we actually have no idea if a suicide barrier on the Cold Spring Bridge would save lives. In response to what I heard at the meeting on Wednesday, I'm now conducting a large-scale statistical study to answer the question on whether suicide barriers save lives. I will make this publicly available as soon as I finish, which should hopefully be before August 8th. I guess I won't be anonymous then, but I think this is important enough to risk unpopularity in some circles..."

The above suggests that CalTrans has acted arbitrarily and capriciously in making the installation of barriers on the bridge a top safety priority. It is not too late for CalTrans and the public officials who are pushing this proposal to slow down, consider carefully the facts, and then-- and only then-- make a reasoned decision based on the facts.