Suicide Prevention Lights in Japan

Blue Lights

Photo Source: Let's Japan

Have you heard this one? Japanese train lines are hooking up blue lights in order to cut down on suicides. Apparently, taking your own life by jumping in front of the train is a bit of a problem in Japan and a few of these lines have been experiencing it quite a bit. That is a disconcerting bit of news. Well, these lights are meant to deter these folks.

The lights in question are LED blue ceiling lights that add a blue tint to the entire area. According the article on Let's Japan, the folks behind this new development are banking on color psychology. Thus, they read that blue has a soothing effect on folks' mind. The powers that be are currently focusing on certain train lines like the Yamanote line. Seems like they have been installing such lighting on various lines but this particular line gets a bit of extra attention. Hence, this one will be fixed up with lights on all stations as opposed to others which either have them at crossings or at select stations.

Since folks have been going for deterrence through blue lighting as far back as 2006 (at least according to the above article), it makes me wonder if there are any statistics about the success rates of such action. Well, it must work to some extent; otherwise, they would not be rolling them out to other stations, right?

While we are on the subject, it appears that such methods of committing suicide is a major problem in Japan. Alright, I know what you are going to say … the fact that authorities are coming up with deterrents is proof enough that it is an issue. And it has been said that Japan has quite a high suicide rate (i.e. counting in all methods). In fact, they are rated at 9^th highest in the world. Needless to say, that's quite disturbing. Well, I didn't know about the train jumping trend before and reading about this now made me realize that it is a scary fad of sorts (i.e. that it ends up being the preferred choice of ending their life). Platform BarriersThat certainly explains the weird beginning of Gantz (the anime); it was not so much the suicide jumper moment at the start that was weird but rather the way folks reacted or didn't quite react to that moment. I mean, they were freaked out but at the same time, not quite as shocked.

By the way, this is not the first suicide prevention measure brought up by the bigwigs. Back in 2008, they installed walls at each platforms and fitted the small entrances with automatic doors. The walls probably reached up to your shoulders (they were 5 feet tall) and so would have been hard to scale over, at least in a big crowd. Interestingly enough, Yamanote Line was one of the routes that was fitted with these barriers. So … they are using all tactics possible to prevent suicide? Or is it that this first measure was a failure or hampered transport?