Human Damage Delay

The train delays have been awful lately! My friend Lena has had to wait over an hour at least three times in the last two weeks or so and even the Shinkansen was delayed ("until further notice") out of Tokyo on Tuesday when someone jumped the tracks in Shiga-Prefecture.


I hate to admit it, but it's a pretty commonly-known fact that the main reason for these delays is suicides. Suicides currently happen at an average rate of 100 per day in Japan and it is not common for a train to be late because of them (it's actually the only reason the train is ever late... and it happens a lot). I will admit that they recently changed the train times, so the crossings now don't seem to match-up as well, and this is causing delays... but there is still too much death. What is even worse, when people decide to jump in front of the train, their family is rwsponsible for paying for all the train delays, damages and clean-up fees (so it's a final way to spite them if you decide you want to go)... and they are messy. The shinkansen that caused Tuesday's delays apparently still had blood on the front when it arrived at Osaka station.


Anyways, I met Kelly in Sannomiya (central Kobe) last night for our hair appointment. We met at the JR station Central exit and when I arrived, Kelly pointed -out that there is now a large, electronic status board in the next to the train time boards, showing when and where train delays happen. The surprising thing to me was that in addition to showing what line was delayed and to what extent, they also gave a reason at the top of the baord (sort of like a breaking news" story), and last night it read "Human Damage Delay." I've heard that some trains announce that there has been a suicide when delays happen, but this is the first time I have actually seen or heard them talk about the suicides and I was surprised to see how they decided to phrase it.