Suicide on the railways

The BBC Magazine has a thought provoking article about suicides on the railway system. This comes in the wake of a rail accident in the UK possibly caused by a suicide.

It seems a number of efforts have been made to try and alleviate the problems of suicide on the railways. These preventative measures include training staff in suspicious behaviour, use of CCTV and placing more adverts for The Samaritans in stations.

While all of these things are laudable it seems to me that if someone is determined to kill themselves then they will succeed. Unintentionally, they may well do it in such a way as to endanger other people.

In that case it is important that we take whatever precautions we can.

Ultimately though we need to recognise that sometimes there are tragedies that no amount of forward planning can avoid.

About the author

Psychologist, Jeremy Dean, PhD is the founder and author of PsyBlog. He holds a doctorate in psychology from University College London and two other advanced degrees in psychology.

He has been writing about scientific research on PsyBlog since 2004. He is also the author of the book “Making Habits, Breaking Habits” (Da Capo, 2003) and several ebooks:

SOURCE: PSYBLOG