The Mackinac Bridge in Michigan spans five miles and is one of the longest suspension bridges in the world with the roadway soaring more than 200 feet over Lake Michigan. The bridge's dimensions provide stunning views of the surrounding landscape, but those vistas can be stomach-churning for people with gephyrophobia, or an abnormal fear of crossing bridges.
Between 1,200 to 1,400 calls are made every year to the bridge's Drivers Assistance Program that provides motorists with a crew member to drive them across if they're too afraid to drive themselves.
After the Thursday collapse of a highway bridge in Mount Vernon, Wash., the number of calls might increase with more fearful drivers wanting to be chauffeured across the Mackinac Bridge. But experts say phobias like gephyrophobia are sometimes more complicated in their origins.
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Dr. Frank Schneier, a professor of clinical psychiatry at Columbia University and research psychiatrist at the
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