According to Paolo Cosulich-Schwartz, spokesperson for the Golden Gate Bridge, Highway and Transportation District, there just isn’t a lot of demand. In the San Fransisco Bay Area, there’s no particular program for bridge-phobic drivers. The Mackinac Bridge in Northern Michigan. Cameras on the bridge can also alert staff to an incident or a driver in the middle of a panic attack. They are that afraid to go across.” Nowack sees the free service as a proactive policy that prevents hazards. “Sometimes people will get underneath the blanket and hide in the back seat. On windy days, the number can double, the bridge authority's Kim Nowack says, especially in winter, when winds can exceed 30 mph. Bridge staff, who are also responsible for escorting hazardous-materials trucks and maintenance chores, drive up to 10 people across the bridge each day. Formerly known as the Timid Driver Program, it’s now referred to as the Driver Assistance Program. In Michigan, the Mackinac Bridge Authority drives vehicles for free over a bridge that connects the state’s Upper and Lower Peninsulas and rises 199 feet above the strait below. And the other guy can sit in the passenger seat, in the cab of the truck, with his head down.” “One guy actually gets into his sleeper and just kind of hides. He has two regular truckers who say the Bay Bridge, as locals refer to it, is the only bridge they can’t drive. He charges $40 cash, one way, for cars, up to $75 for motorcycles, and $125 for tractor-trailers. “I have two grown men who will sit on the floor in the back seat of their vehicle, just get on the floor and sit,” says Eskew. “The bridge doesn’t discriminate,” says Eskew, who’s been driving men and women, young and old, truck drivers and motorcyclists as part of his service for five years. Now Steven Eskew runs Kent Island Express, a private company that shuttles drivers over the Chesapeake Bay Bridge, and says that pre-COVID-19, it was typical to serve 12 to 18 customers a day. While the agencies responsible for some intimidating bridges will drive the fearful for free, the Maryland Bridge Authority put an end to its service more than 15 years ago. McMahon started using this service after her panic attack. Others fork over cash to have a fearless driver take their place behind the wheel and help them get over it-the bridge, that is. Thousands of those drivers are so petrified, they rely on friends or family do the driving for them. Each day, between 80,000 and 100,000 people drive across the Chesapeake Bay Bridge, with traffic soaring on summer and holiday weekends. According to Erin Berman, a clinical psychologist in the Section on Development and Affective Neuroscience at the National Institute of Mental Health (NIMH), “phobias are relatively common, with 9.1 percent of adults meeting criteria for a phobia in the span of a year in the United States,” though she pointed out that “the data for each specific phobia are less reliable.” So it’s not specifically known how many people have gephyrophobia. I just read that license plate as a mantra the whole time.” Once the steep grade eased onto the flat of Kent Island on the other side, she says, she burst into tears.Ī fear of bridges is called gephyrophobia. I didn't look over it just happened.” As her vision played tricks on her and daylight turned to darkness, McMahon, who lives in the DC suburb of Gaithersburg, Maryland, thought, “‘I have to get across without dying and killing them.’ So, what I did was I focused on the license plate in front of me, and that's all I looked at. With her nine-year-old daughter and five-year-old niece buckled in the back seat, McMahon, now 56, says, her “face went numb, my limbs went numb, and I thought I was going to have a heart attack.
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