Gephyrophobia: A Fear Of Crossing Bridges

Even Before The Minnesota Collapse, Many Have Severe Phobia About Bridges

(CBS)  Elise Ayers, who works for the State Department, isn't afraid of overseas adventure. What scares her is the "Monster."

The monster she fears is the Chesapeake Bay Bridge in Maryland. At four miles long and 185 feet high, Ayers says the thought of driving the bridge - with the way it rises straight in the air - raises a sense of panic in her.

"My temperature changes and then all of a sudden I think I'm getting over the bridge and I realize I'm not thinking clearly," she tells CBS News correspondent Wyatt Andrews.

That same sense of doom comes over a construction worker, who asked not to be identified.

"Oh yeah, [my] heart races, you can't grip the steering wheel tight enough. It's horrible," he said.

The Minneapolis bridge collapse last week might naturally make any driver approach a bridge with at least a second thought. But for drivers with a true bridge phobia, it's a lot more than a second thought: It's an overwhelming fear.

Jerilyn Ross, a therapist who treats drivers with bridge phobia, describes it as a loss of control - a fear of fear itself.

"It's not so much a fear of the bridge," she says. "It's a fear of being on the bridge, being halfway across the bridge and suddenly panicking and thinking 'I want to get off. What if I pass out? What if I die?'"

To get over the Bay Bridge, Ayers called a bridge-crossing service. Ken Medell arrives to drive her and her car across.

Last year, 4,000 drivers asked for the service - 11 every day.

In other states, fearful drivers can be driven across the Tappan Zee in New York, the Mackinaw Straits in Michigan and the Delaware Memorial Bridge.

The service exists because bridge panic is a safety concern.

"You try to cross the bridge where something happens and you panic. Now you've got either the bridge backing up or someone running into you," Medell says.

At the end of the crossing, Ayers is safe and she's off for vacation. It may be a while before she's over the fear - but today she's over the monster.

[tnt1954]

in 1959 when i was 8, my dad and ma and i
crossed the lake ponchatrain bridge in louisiana
when it was raining so hard, you could only
see about five feet in front of the car. it
was an old 1954 aqua green ford that we
got at the factory in detroit, michigan.
somehow omaha prague got us through to
the other side. must have had x-ray vision.
who knows? operated by dead reckoning alone.

[tnt1954]

fog the bane of all motorists. say you're
on the new jersey turnpike and you are a trucker
delivering 'delicate' national security products
out to those defense plants on long island.
and its so foggy that you cannot even
see the steering wheel. in those cases,
you just have jesus christ drive the truck.
or God or whatever superpower is available
at the time. and its rush hour. good luck.

[tnt1954]

i once had a great idea, build pontoon bridges
across the pacific ocean to hawaii. then you
could drive there. i sent it to washington, d.c.
i have no idea why it was turned down.