Traffic deaths versus suicide

While being totally sympathetic to any people out there who might have lost loved ones to car accidents does anyone else find it curious that death by car accident receives so much publicity relative to death by suicide.
457 people died by their own hand in 2004, 374 died in car accidents in 2004. While being conscious of how terrible last weekend was in particular, why is there not such an out pouring of anger over the higher rate of suicide?

For one thing, for every death on the roads there are something like 4 people seriously injured.
Dangerous drivers are a hazard to themselves and to others, potential suicides are usually more hazard to themselves alone.

People die in car accidents. Suicide is not accidental.

You raise a fair point. I certainly agree that the problem of suicide especially in young men doesn't get the coverage that it deserves. Guess there is still a sense of taboo or lack of understanding about mental health in this country. How many times have I heard someone say "what have you to be depressed about?"

At least some of the fatalities in Road accidents are suicides, so the difference in numbers is even greater.

The difference in attention given to the two types of death is staggering.
Constant attention and advertising campaigns for Road Safety, and little or no attention given to the persistently high levels of suicide, particularly among young males.

If these young men were dying from some unknown virus it would be front page news and the story wouldn't go away. For goodness sake the government issued iodine tablets because of a little media fuss about the remote possibility of a nuclear disaster.

And yet these young men are dying in many cases from an illness. But the illness has a mental component. The rest of us are confident that we can't catch it, so there's no story.

At the very minimum if the number of road deaths per month is going to be reported, then the number of suicides should be too. If you're not going to do one then don't do the other.

Of course the reason why road deaths get talked about a lot more than suicide by your politicians is that road deaths for the most part are caused by the actions of the citiziens. They can claim that they are doing everything in their power and it's all the motorists fault.

Discussing suicide would open up a whole can of worms about how those with mental illness have been and continue to be treated. And your politicians would much rather talk about what you've done wrong than what they've done wrong.

Until they can actually say honestly that they have done a good job of caring for those with mental illness, there is not going to be any serious national debate about suicide.

Incidently, I'm not saying that all suicide is caused by mental illness, just that both topics are linked, and discussion of one leads to discussion of the other, which your government doesn't want.

-Rd

Good point about some road accidents being sucides. i think the actual number of sucides is far higher. I know of a few old men at home who died and suspision was of suicide but most people would be afraid to say it.

daltonr said:

Discussing suicide would open up a whole can of worms about how those with mental illness have been and continue to be treated.

-Rd

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Bravo, Dalton! This issue is shoved under the carpet and nobody wants to address it. The mental health services in this country are a disgrace and are aimed at medicating everyone rather than addressing root causes. The Commission for Mental Health recently brought out a report on the views of 'service users' (ie patients) which were very revealing.

Yea, I brought up the issue to see what peoples feelings were. As for "People die in car accidents. Suicide is not accidental"
well should people who die in car accidents because they are going 100+Mph deserve more sympathy than someone who dies by suicide because they feel let down by every aspect of society? Should we as a society be more ashamed of ourselves becasue of people who kill themselves by driving at crazy speeds or be more ashamed because of people who feel so let down that look at having no other option?

daltonr said:

For goodness sake the government issued iodine tablets because of a little media fuss about the remote possibility of a nuclear disaster.-Rd

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And I still have mine!!! Am going to show my children how forward thinking our government was in the good ole days!!!

On a more serious note, I would have far more sympathy for people who feel on the verge of committing suicide than for the absolute ejits I see who nearly knock me sideways off the road because I'll never be driving fast enough for them...no sympathy for them...I'm fed up with them, they annoy the hell out of me, I have my eyes out on stalks sometimes trying to guess what they will do next. They never get caught by the guards when I'm around. I saw some judge banned a guy from driving for ten years and jailed him too for 2 years I think... that's a start. There is nothing to deter these ejits or make them wake up to reality.

My sympathies do go out to the families of anyone who has been killed in an accident...these are the people left to deal with it and live with it. As are the people who are left behind after a suicide...I have no understanding of this as thank God, it hasn't touched my circle yet. But I often wonder that there must have been another route to try first before that last awful step. But again, I have no experience of this, just compassion for those touched by it.

I agree that there is a completely unjustifiable disparity in the media’s coverage of these two phenomenons. I do not have the figures but I suspect that the HSE spends a lot more on mental health treatment than most people would guess. The issue is how much do they spend on mental health education.
There is also still a social stigma attached to suicide amongst older people. It is not something that many people talk about openly. For suicide to be seen as the real tragedy that it is this stigma has to be removed.
Mental health, and suicide amongst young men in particular, is a very complex issue. There are many factors both genetic and environmental that are at play when someone becomes depressed and/or suicidal. Because it is complex it also requires complex and subtle solutions. No politician ever got re-elected for being subtle and complex.
Medication is an essential part of the solution in many cases, as is ECT. Both of these are very unfashionable at the moment in the mainstream media but they are only a bad idea if they are used to mask a root cause that is not being addressed in other ways.
While I find it hard to have any sympathy for any of those killed in cars that crash at high speeds I feel a huge amount of sympathy for their families. On the other hand I have huge sympathy for those who feel so empty, alone and hopeless that they take their own life. This issue of comparative culpability between suicide and road deaths is interesting and legitimate but it does not address the real issues. Both are sickening and useless wastes of life, both devastate families and both can be minimised.

Suicide isn't reported in the media, as far as I understand it, because reporting it tends to give rise to a lot of copycat suicides. Therefore, there is a code of conduct that individual suicides aren't reported.

"Therefore, there is a code of conduct that individual suicides aren't reported."

This may have been true in the past, though I suspect that deference to next of kin was a bigger factor; But I am afraid I do not believe that today's newspapers and broadcast media observe any such code out of any sort of noble reason. There is nothing whatever off limits or beyond the bounds of taste if will sell more newspapers. The truth, I rather suspect, is the more prosaic reason that suicide reports are not seen as something which will help to sell newspapers

Re: Traffic deaths versus suicide versus .....

Add the two of these and it is still less than the number who die by accident ( wrong drugs given, MRSA etc ) in hospitals around the country.

The code of conduct you talk about is the same one that leads RTE and the newspapers to report that "Gardai are not looking for anyone else in relation to the incident" the day after a death has been reported, or " . . . was killed when his car veered off the road in the early hours. No other vehicles were involved."

I think it is a shame that these deaths are not reported for what they are - why bother using code words to effectively disguise a suicide or a likely case of drunken driving leading to loss of control and death ? The level of alcohol should be a matter of record where post mortem results indicate excessive levels. Not reporting the likely cause of death (obviously this can be contentious and sensitive) only leads to the situation where people underestimate the real level of certain events and contributes to the 'it will never happen to me' culture.

z

MOB said:

"Therefore, there is a code of conduct that individual suicides aren't reported."

This may have been true in the past, though I suspect that deference to next of kin was a bigger factor; But I am afraid I do not believe that today's newspapers and broadcast media observe any such code out of any sort of noble reason. There is nothing whatever off limits or beyond the bounds of taste if will sell more newspapers. The truth, I rather suspect, is the more prosaic reason that suicide reports are not seen as something which will help to sell newspapers

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There is probably a legal issue, media don't want to report a suspected suicide as suicide, as if it is not, they could leave themselves open to libel charges, if a coroner were to give a verdict other than suicide at an inquest.

zag said:

I think it is a shame that these deaths are not reported for what they are - why bother using code words to effectively disguise a suicide

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To protect the sensitivities of relatives perhaps?

zag said:

...or a likely case of drunken driving leading to loss of control and death ?

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The key word here is "likely". What you seem to be advocating is that the "likely" causes of suicides and road accidents are publicised even when there is uncertainty about these factors. You forget that we already have a system for determining and thereafter publicising the cause of deaths arising other than via natural causes, ie inquests. As someone whose own family has sadly experienced a tragic bereavement, I would have been horrified if the media had seen fit to jump to conclusions about that case in advance of, or even after, the inquest.

ubiquitous - my sympathies regarding your family loss.

I think you mis-understand my point at least partly. I fully accept that relatives sensitivities need to be taken into account in reporting incidents and that each one involves an individual with a unique story and a unique set of values. I accept that there is scope for unwanted and unneeded sensationalism and much harm. However, I believe that while using what appear to be code or stock phrases might provide some comfort for relatives at a difficult time it actually provides a dis-service to the rest of the population by obfuscating the situation and the scale of the issue nationally.

I also accept that we have courts of law and coroners courts to adjudicate on matters of law and causes of death and that they are there for a good reason - I don't think we should start implementing a new way of determining causes of death just so they can be reported on the news within 24 hours. However I did use the word 'likely' with good reason - it is possible for Gardai and medical personnel to form a reasonable view as to the blood alcohol level in a deceased person (within time limits of course) and allied with other circumstantial evidence (like being seated in the drivers seat of a crashed car) come to the conclusion that alcohol was (or wasn't as the measurements indicate) a likely contributory factor. Where they are unable to form a view then by all means they shouldn't enter into speculation, but where there is reasonable ciscrumstantial evidence I believe it should be publicised.

My core point is that by skirting around the issue in individual cases the media and the authorities are helping maintain the fog around the scale of suicide and other causes of death. They maintain relatives sensibilities, but they fail to educate the public at large.

It may well be said that the public need to educate themselves, but this can only happen with real and accurate information.

z

Hi zag

I agree to a point. That said the issue of "copycat" suicides is a very real one. There is strong reason to believe that increased coverage of suicides has prompted more people to take their own lives. I also personally suspect that a parallel phenomenon happens occasionally in relation to road deaths - ie a certain category of young, male driver imitate the behaviour that caused a previous road tragedy. For example I would not be surprised if other cases of the so-called "chicken" driving "game" crop up in the next few weeks following the Monaghan tragedy last weekend. Needless to say, I hope I'm wrong.

There is strong reason to believe that increased coverage of suicides has prompted more people to take their own lives.

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The question how many lives would you save by highlighting cases of drunk driving, and asleep at the wheel, and suicide in one vehicle collisions.

Then compare that with how many suicides you'd "cause" that wouldn't have happened anyway. Are you causing suicide, or just causing a particular method for a suicide that would have happened anyway.

Probably a little of both.

Forget about suicide for a minute. The blood alcohol level of any driver involved in a fatal accident should be reported, even if the driver was one of the fatalities. Similarly any other drugs found in their system.

These are things that can be determined objectively in a lab, you are not relying on the opinions of Gardai.

-Rd

Purple said:

Medication is an essential part of the solution in many cases, as is ECT. Both of these are very unfashionable at the moment in the mainstream media but they are only a bad idea if they are used to mask a root cause that is not being addressed in other ways.

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I agree with most of the sentiments and especially the root cause one. However, medication is by no means unfashionable - antidepressant medication is one of the greatest money spinners for pharmaceutical companies. Controlled studies established that they are useful to around 40% of sufferers. Medication is usually the first line of treatment and almost never addresses the root cause. ECT is very controversial, especially as there are very few controlled studies and the side effects such as memory loss can be horrendous. Some patients never recover from the effects of ECT. It certain parts of the world it is banned altogether.