There are plenty of ways to commit suicide, but
few more public than turning a multiton moving
train full of passengers into a bullet. Last year
in the U.K., 194 people killed themselves on the
tracks of mass-transit systems, with some 50 of
those choosing the sooty tunnels of the Tube. New
York City's subway averages 26 suicides a year.
In Paris, 24 died on the tracks of the Métro
last year. While it is a fallacy to imagine any
suicide as a solitary act even the tidiest
affair leaves survivorrs stricken death by
train is a particularly declaratory form of
kkilling oneself. It makes the act a form of
theater for the driverr, watching it all from
behind his windshield, and for the rest of us.
In the past months in Britain, there has been a
sort of low-humming cultural unease about
suicides on the Tube, which are readily announced
over station intercoms as the reason for delays,
presumably to allay fears of terrorism. A movie
in general release, Three and Out, attempted to
turn this unease into dark comedy by portraying a
hapless Tube driver who tries to exploit a
(fictional) loophole in his contract that grants
him early retirement if he witnesses three
suicides from his train. The film misjudged the
nation's mood and was savaged by film critics,
mental-health workers and the train drivers'
union, whose members picketed outside the
premiere of the movie. Their placards declared
that suicides on the Tube were no laughing matter.
<http://www.time.com/time/world/article/0,8599,1827064,00.html>Link
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Posted By johannes to
<http://www.monochrom.at/english/2008/07/suicide-on-tube.htm>monochrom
at 7/30/2008 01:50:00 PM
