Joseph Tavares is a retired East Providence police chief and board president of The Samaritans of Rhode Island. Denise Panichas is executive director.
As is well documented in the media and in legislative testimony, The Samaritans of Rhode Island has been a leader in advocating for the installation of permanent suicide prevention barriers on state bridges over Narragansett Bay . But our advocacy does not stop with this effort.
In June 2024, our board of directors voted on endorsing a policy advocating “Zero Accidents, Zero Injuries, Zero Suicides” and submitted written testimony for consideration to Moving Forward RI 2050 – the RIDOT/Statewide Planning plan. It should be noted Zero Accidents, Zero Injuries, Zero Suicides is an international construction standard applying to workers, but not a design standard for the public.
With this testimony, we asked that the Rhode Island Department of Transportation include physical suicide prevention barriers across all elements of planning documents, programs and services including but not limited to bridges owned by RIDOT and collaboratively maintained by RIDOT and other state/quasi-state agencies.