Not another MRT accident...

http://tomorrow.sg/archives/2006/12/05/mrt_track_accident_again.html

“Another one?

These are the kinds of response people have been giving upon hearing the news of recent MRT jumps. Note that the “jumps” is in plural form.

Recently there have been a disturbing amount of MRT accidents happening in Singapore. This created concern over the safety of MRT stations, as well as sparking debates over the morality of ending one’s life on the MRT track.

Singapore’s MRT system is one of the few things that are uniquely-Singapore. However, due to the recent incidents, SMRT has been criticized and was put under pressure to install more safety features to its MRT stations, such as railings in stations that are above ground.

However, the installation of railings expensive, and the SMRT would have to bear the expenses of both the installation of the railings as well as the service disruption caused by them.

On a closer look, would the installation of railings really prevent anymore MRT accidents?

The older accidents a few years ago might have been caused by crowds pushing the victim onto the track, but the majority of the recent incidents are mainly suicide attempts of victims who got onto the track on their own free will. In such cases, the railings would do little to prevent them from getting onto the tracks. They can get either crawl over or simply get onto the track through the entrance.

I feel that the problem cannot be solved merely by physical barriers in front of the track. A better solution would be to get to the core of the problem and start from there.

So just why were there so many suicide attempts at MRT stations recently? The answer lies in the media. The first MRT suicide incident that was widely publicised caused a storm in Singapore at that time. The victim had decided to take his own life due to his inability to support his family financially. His story was broadcasted in all the major Medias. Donations soon flooded in to help his family, mainly due to the wide publicity. The donations eventually amounted to $500000.

This is what encouraged the victims to resort to this extreme way of supporting their family - through death. By broadcasting such incidents, the media is in fact encouraging such acts, albeit unintentionally.

Although the people have already gotten used by such incidents and donations to the victim’s families has been steadily decreasing, the frequency of the incidents has only increased.

Thus, I feel that in order to prevent anymore incidents from happening, the media should minimize the amount of exposure given to such incidents, so that no more lives would be lost.