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Location Information:
San Francisco Webcam, Golden Gate
Bridge, SF Bay Live Feed and
Weather, California. Live streaming
web cam feed at the Golden Gate
Bridge in San Francisco Bay,
California. Live view and weather
forecast.
The
Golden Gate Bridge is a suspension
bridge spanning the Golden Gate, the
opening of the San Francisco Bay
into the Pacific Ocean. As part of
both U.S. Route 101 and California
State Route 1, it connects the city
of San Francisco on the northern tip
of the San Francisco Peninsula to
Marin County. The Golden Gate Bridge
was the longest suspension bridge
span in the world when it was
completed during the year 1937, and
has become one of the most
internationally recognized symbols
of San Francisco, California, and of
the United States. Since its
completion, the span length has been
surpassed by eight other bridges. It
still has the second longest
suspension bridge main span in the
United States, after the Verrazano-Narrows
Bridge in New York City. In 1999, it
was ranked fifth on the List of
America's Favorite Architecture by
the American Institute of
Architects.
The
Golden Gate Bridge is not only the
most popular place to commit suicide
in the United States but the most
popular in the entire world. The
deck is approximately 245 feet (75
m) above the water. After a fall of
approximately four seconds, jumpers
hit the water at some 76 miles per
hour (122 km/h). At such a speed,
water has proven to take on
properties similar to concrete.
Because of this, most jumpers die on
their immediate contact with the
water. The few who survive the
initial impact generally drown or
die of hypothermia in the cold
water.
An
official suicide count was kept,
sorted according to which of the
bridge's 128 lamp posts the jumper
was nearest when he or she jumped.
By 2005, this count exceeded 1,200
and new suicides were averaging one
every two weeks. For comparison, the
reported second-most-popular place
to commit suicide in the world,
Aokigahara Forest in Japan, has a
record of 78 bodies, found within
the forest in 2002, with an average
of 30 a year. There were 34
bridge-jump suicides in 2006 whose
bodies were recovered, in addition
to four jumps that were witnessed
but whose bodies were never
recovered, and several bodies
recovered suspected to be from
bridge jumps. The California Highway
Patrol removed 70 apparently
suicidal people from the bridge that
year
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