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I was staying in Paris, France for a few months with a local friend a while back... she worked for SNCF. Apparently suicide is a huge problem in France, and mo

I was staying in Paris, France for a few months with a local friend a while back... she worked for SNCF. Apparently suicide is a huge problem in France, and most of the time when a train is delayed or you are stopped in the middle of the tracks it's because they're quickly picking up body parts. That's also the reason for the lack of communication on behalf of the train operators. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Suicide_in_France http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Suicide_in_France

kalleboo 12y ago
Here in Japan, the most common delay reason I see on the signs is "passenger injury". I think we all understand that they don't mean it's a grandma who fell over and hurt her leg...
- sirdogealot 12y ago
  I am sorry to hear that that is a common train delay reason experienced in Japan. I have never been. Apparently Japan has an abnormally high suicide rate too. It ranks 10th in the world according to wikipedia: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_suicide_rate http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_suicide_ra... while france is 26th. I would call a single suicide an abnormally high rate but I digress...
negativity 12y ago
You'd still expect that they'd have some kind of open-ended vague parlance for suicide-by-train. In NYC subways, a conductor will at least mention on the intercom that delays are being experienced due to "train traffic", "signaling problems", "mechanical difficulties", "medical emergencies" or "police activity." A suicide could easily be categorized as a medical emergency, hence the ambulances.
- sirdogealot 12y ago
  They did. She told me it was referred to as [sic]: "Nous avons eu un grave accident." Which translates to: "We have had a (very) bad accident." I was becoming frustrated at the frequent subway/train delays (while every other local Parisienne just sat tight, chalking it up to an every day event) and she quietly whispered to me on the the train that [sic] "Whenever they say there has been a 'grave accident', somebody probably hurled themselves onto the tracks, and this happens much more frequently around christmast/family holidays for obvious reasons." Suicide is a terrible thing that literally affects the entire world. I recently had to deal with my best friend losing his (incredibly successfull) father to suicide. Being an up-and-coming startup-loving entrepreneur... I could have only hoped to reach his level of excellence in the business community. But he just kept to himself and blew his brains out in the family bathroom the other day for god knows what reason... what a shame.
  - punee 12y ago
    I think the term of art is "accident de personne." I certainly heard it a few times myself. The SNCF can be blamed for a lot of things, including subpar service quality, but I don't think they ever tried hiding the nature of those accidents.
    - sirdogealot 12y ago
      They don't hide them. Apparently every parisienne is aware of the fact that their subways are suicide targets and they just gracefully ignore them. I was astounded when I learnt about them initially to say the least.
Argorak 12y ago
Munich has a similar problem with the S-Trains only having one track to run through the system. In Berlin, "Notfalleinsatz im Gleis" (Emergency rescue in the trainbed) is also quite often. Deutsche Bahn uses "Unfall mit Personenschaden" (Accident with people involved). Usually, information and coverage about this is scarce for a reason, to avoid copycat suicides (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Copycat_suicide http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Copycat_suicide).
ekianjo 12y ago
Let me call BS on that. Japan has way more suicides on its railways (because it has both more trains and more suicides in the first place than France) and the Japan Rail company always communicate on the reasons of their delays, EVEN when it's about a suicide. And delays are never in number of hours for these kind of cases, but rather about 20 to 40 mins max. Another example from the SCNF, from my own experience. One the TGV (bullet train) stopped nowhere and we waited more than 2 hours wondering what was happening. There was no communication. Only when we arrived at the destination we were told the train hit a wild boar or something like that and that was the reason for us stopping. Seriously, why keeping everyone in the dark ? Complete lack of process and customer service. That's what the SNCF is. It's very telling how they refer to their clients as being "usagers" (users, but in the worst possible choice of word in French) instead of referring to them as customers.
- informatimago 12y ago
  Fact is that usagers are not customers: SNCF travels are paid by the taxpayer!
  - ekianjo 12y ago
    And that's precisely why it does not work well.
- informatimago 12y ago
  Fact is that usagers are not customers: SNCF travels are paid by the taxpayer!
renox 12y ago
I'm not sure that this is 'most of the time' some parts of our railways are also very old so they have technical failures.. In the subway, they're (slowly) replacing access gates so that you cannot access to the tracks which would reduce a lot this kind of suicide, but 1) it's very expensive 2) unions are against it, because at the same time they make trains remotely controlled..

kalleboo 12y ago

Here in Japan, the most common delay reason I see on the signs is "passenger injury". I think we all understand that they don't mean it's a grandma who fell over and hurt her leg...

sirdogealot 12y ago
I am sorry to hear that that is a common train delay reason experienced in Japan. I have never been. Apparently Japan has an abnormally high suicide rate too. It ranks 10th in the world according to wikipedia: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_suicide_rate http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_suicide_ra... while france is 26th. I would call a single suicide an abnormally high rate but I digress...

negativity 12y ago

You'd still expect that they'd have some kind of open-ended vague parlance for suicide-by-train. In NYC subways, a conductor will at least mention on the intercom that delays are being experienced due to "train traffic", "signaling problems", "mechanical difficulties", "medical emergencies" or "police activity." A suicide could easily be categorized as a medical emergency, hence the ambulances.

sirdogealot 12y ago
They did. She told me it was referred to as [sic]: "Nous avons eu un grave accident." Which translates to: "We have had a (very) bad accident." I was becoming frustrated at the frequent subway/train delays (while every other local Parisienne just sat tight, chalking it up to an every day event) and she quietly whispered to me on the the train that [sic] "Whenever they say there has been a 'grave accident', somebody probably hurled themselves onto the tracks, and this happens much more frequently around christmast/family holidays for obvious reasons." Suicide is a terrible thing that literally affects the entire world. I recently had to deal with my best friend losing his (incredibly successfull) father to suicide. Being an up-and-coming startup-loving entrepreneur... I could have only hoped to reach his level of excellence in the business community. But he just kept to himself and blew his brains out in the family bathroom the other day for god knows what reason... what a shame.
- punee 12y ago
  I think the term of art is "accident de personne." I certainly heard it a few times myself. The SNCF can be blamed for a lot of things, including subpar service quality, but I don't think they ever tried hiding the nature of those accidents.
  - sirdogealot 12y ago
    They don't hide them. Apparently every parisienne is aware of the fact that their subways are suicide targets and they just gracefully ignore them. I was astounded when I learnt about them initially to say the least.

Argorak 12y ago

Munich has a similar problem with the S-Trains only having one track to run through the system. In Berlin, "Notfalleinsatz im Gleis" (Emergency rescue in the trainbed) is also quite often. Deutsche Bahn uses "Unfall mit Personenschaden" (Accident with people involved). Usually, information and coverage about this is scarce for a reason, to avoid copycat suicides (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Copycat_suicide http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Copycat_suicide).

ekianjo 12y ago

Let me call BS on that. Japan has way more suicides on its railways (because it has both more trains and more suicides in the first place than France) and the Japan Rail company always communicate on the reasons of their delays, EVEN when it's about a suicide. And delays are never in number of hours for these kind of cases, but rather about 20 to 40 mins max. Another example from the SCNF, from my own experience. One the TGV (bullet train) stopped nowhere and we waited more than 2 hours wondering what was happening. There was no communication. Only when we arrived at the destination we were told the train hit a wild boar or something like that and that was the reason for us stopping. Seriously, why keeping everyone in the dark ? Complete lack of process and customer service. That's what the SNCF is. It's very telling how they refer to their clients as being "usagers" (users, but in the worst possible choice of word in French) instead of referring to them as customers.

informatimago 12y ago
Fact is that usagers are not customers: SNCF travels are paid by the taxpayer!
- ekianjo 12y ago
  And that's precisely why it does not work well.
informatimago 12y ago
Fact is that usagers are not customers: SNCF travels are paid by the taxpayer!

renox 12y ago

I'm not sure that this is 'most of the time' some parts of our railways are also very old so they have technical failures.. In the subway, they're (slowly) replacing access gates so that you cannot access to the tracks which would reduce a lot this kind of suicide, but 1) it's very expensive 2) unions are against it, because at the same time they make trains remotely controlled..