Suicide Prevention Day

Turns out today is world suicide prevention day.

In QLD in 2021:-

813 suicides in QLD [1]

275 road deaths [2]

$237M in speeding fines[3]

Pardon my sarcasm...

FACEBOOK 

Posted the above on FB. It will be interesting to see if FB shares it. I suspect it won't. 

MUSINGS

My thought position is

1) When I person dies it's a personal tragedy but not a national tragedy. 

2) We (government, public servants & most people) are too focused on safety. 

3) Safety is used as an excuse to implement rules. 

4) We are subjected relentlessly to the message that speed is terrible. 

5) it's easy to make money out of speeding so they do. They put a ton of focus on it to justify making the money. 

6) Far more people die from suicide than car accidents. 

7) The government can't make money out of suicide or suicide prevention so not much focus. 

8) I think the reduction in freedom brought about by our increasingly rule focused society is contributing to suicide. 

Back to my FB post. 

Essentially I don't think we should worry about the road toll because it's small and way smaller than the suicide rate. Plus I don't see it as a tragedy when someone dies and we should be able to legally have ourselves put down. 

Dissention 

I discussed this verbally with a friend who strongly disagrees with me. He pointed out that if someone close to him were to die out would totally rip him apart. I interpret that to mean that the negative consequences of death are personally very VERY significant and it's reasonable to put measures in place to minimise deaths. 

REFERENCES

[1]https://www.choreport.health.qld.gov.au/our-health/mental-health/suicide-and-self-harm#:~:text=Introduction,lives%20by%20suicide%20each%20year.&text=In%202021%2C%20813%20people%20in%20Queensland%20died%20from%20suspected%20suicide.&text=2-,Each%20suicide%20is%20devastating%20to%20family%2C%20friends%20and%20the%20community,are%20affected%20by%20each%20death.

[2]https://www.publications.qld.gov.au/dataset/road-safety-statistics/resource/8f443a11-72bf-42e3-9c26-4f7b4cd014e1#:~:text=During%201%20January%20to%2031,fatality%20report%20number%20is%201250j.

[3]https://www.whichcar.com.au/news/queensland-to-earn-518m-from-speeding-drivers