Auckland's historic Grafton Bridge is being altered to prevent people leaping to their deaths onto the motorway below.
Auckland City Council is spending more than $1 million reinstating barriers which were first put on the bridge in 1937 to stop suicides, but removed six years ago.
However, instead of the old steel
barriers a new perspex canopy will curve inwards from the bridge rail over the footpath, making it impossible for people to climb over.
Inspector Derek Davison from the Auckland police said the council and the police had an obligation not only to protect people from killing themselves, but also to protect motorists who may be hit by falling bodies.
"A time was going to come with the amount of traffic on our roads when a motorist or a passenger was going to be directly involved below the bridge with a person falling into or on top of a vehicle.
"That is horrific. It is horrific anyway but that makes it doubly so. We have had bodies hit by cars below the bridge after a person has jumped. It has been dreadful."
He said the old 1.8m high steel barriers did not prevent people determined to kill themselves, and actually hampered firefighters, police, and ambulance officers from reaching people who had climbed onto the edge.
He did not have figures for suicides from the bridge but said scores had killed themselves since it was opened in 1910.
"Grafton Bridge is a suicide icon. It is almost like Golden Gate is to San Francisco," Mr Davison said.
- NZPA
