That's what the Keihin Electric Express Railway Company in Tokyo hopes. Last year in Japan, almost 2,000 people killed themselves by jumping onto train tracks. Why are train suicides so popular there? Well, when was the last time you saw a Japanese person buying a hunting rifle with an orange hat on? Most people go with what's available and when you have constant access to fast ass trains, that's a pretty safe bet. But will the blue lights work?Their experts say that blue has a calming effect on the mind, which may be true, but is that enough to keep a severely depressed person from ending it? Blue is the color of depression, isn't it? Wouldn't that make them even sadder? Of course they say they're trying to save lives, but what they really want is fewer corpses clogging up the railway system.
Even if the lights work and keep someone suicidal from jumping onto the tracks, that person will just take the train home and hang themselves in their closet anyway. You're not really saving anyone, you're just saving your own train schedule. Of course you could say the same for anti-suicide fence walls, which would be a more proven method of stopping suicides, but at least walls show you really care.
Even better would be a Zoloft dispenser robot near the tracks that senses when someone is going to jump and jams pills down their throat. Maybe that technology is a little ways down the road for now, (even for Japan) but the walls are here now! And perhaps if suicidal people were met with amazing deterrents like giant Plexiglas walls all the time, they'd realize that killing themselves is futile and they have no choice but to enjoy an immortal life where they will never die.
-Binkie McFartnuggets
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