Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Oslo had 0 pedestrian, 0 cyclist, 0 children and 1 driver trafic deaths in 2019

twitter.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

261–270 of 524 posts

Re: Oslo had 0 pedestrian, 0 cyclist, 0 children and 1 driver trafic deaths in 2019

#261

Post by rand_cato »

nabla9 wrote: post #244

Is Tesla having any effect on that? Most new cars sold in Norway are electric and Tesla has almost 50% share of electric cars. Model 3 is the most-sold vehicle in Norway.

Probably some due to the safety features, but I think its wrong to focus on Telsa alone here - modern cars (such as Tesla) have much better safety features than the cars from the 1970s. Norway has a high standard of living, and there are a lot of nice and new cars in Oslo.

Most of this is probably due to the local government focus on walkability. The article describes that the reduction is due to reduced speed limits, an increased amount of bike-paths and limiting a large number of roads to only pedestrian traffic. The large increase in road tolls and increase in cycling has probably also reduced the total number of cars on the road.

Anecdotally I've got the impression that Tesla drivers are among the most aggressive ones on the road in Norway, but this is only my experience.

Re: Oslo had 0 pedestrian, 0 cyclist, 0 children and 1 driver trafic deaths in 2019

#262

Post by blattimwind »

wozniacki wrote: post #174
ehnto wrote: post #125

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If it's so dangerous, maybe we should get the cars out of the places where people are walking around a lot. Since the primary purpose of a city is for people to get business and life done, and not to move cars from one side of it to the other. People should be able to cross outside of crosswalks, because the cars should be driving fast somewhere else, or driving at a safe speed in the city. That safe speed is far, fa…

If it's so dangerous, maybe we should get the cars out of the places where people are walking around a lot. Since the primary purpose of a city is for people to get business and life done, and not to move cars from one side of it to the other. This is why level-headed observers dismiss opinions on HN to be thoroughly foolhardy, tone-deaf and impractical. People use cars for a variety of reasons - convenience just bei…

> This is why level-headed observers dismiss opinions on HN to be thoroughly foolhardy, tone-deaf and impractical.

To be honest, I always look forward to car threads on HN. They are quite entertaining, even if they are filled with at best weird opinions, misunderstandings of traffic laws, fun beliefs of traffic laws ("pedestrians always have right of way, globally"), and curious ideologies. A space entirely devoid of common sense, mostly populated by people whose experiences are exclusive to a country whose road safety stastistics are indistinguishable from the third world.

Re: Oslo had 0 pedestrian, 0 cyclist, 0 children and 1 driver trafic deaths in 2019

#263

Post by whatshisface »

bluGill wrote: post #255
blattimwind wrote: post #247

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Almost like it would make sense to have at least legally separate pathways for motorized, less motorized (scooters, e-bikes), bicycles and pedestrians, because they are very different forms of transport.

It makes perfect sense in theory. In the real world though space is limited. We cannot have separate spaces: there isn't enough room - unless you space things out so far that only only car transport makes sense, at which point why bother building paths for the other modes? Which is why suburbs don't have sidewalks: there is no place you can practically go by any mode other than car so why bother creating space for th…

>suburbs don't have sidewalks

Plenty of suburbs have sidewalks.

Re: Oslo had 0 pedestrian, 0 cyclist, 0 children and 1 driver trafic deaths in 2019

#264

Post by bluGill »

aurbano wrote: post #181
TomMarius wrote: post #98

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I am not sure what you mean with this effectiveness. I live in Prague, the city with (what they say) one of the best public transport systems in the world, and yet, going to my workplace is 45 minutes by public transport and 15 minutes by car. Even though I live close to a subway and tram station, and the workplace is right in the city center, car still wins - where is the effectiveness you're talking about? This is…

I think that in order to have a good discussion it would help if you could explain why public transport is slower in your case. Is the route longer because there isn't a line that goes straight from your home to your workplace? Is it because there aren't a lot of trains, so they take too long to arrive? Otherwise it's hard to tell what the problem with public transport in your city. I live in London for instance, whe…

Public transit is only faster than cars when they have an "unfair" advantage. I'm guessing (I haven't been there) by London zone 1-2 you means trips where the subway (tube you call it?) gets transit out of the way. Other useful "unfair" advantage are trains - because they cannot stop - preempt traffic, and there are also transit only lanes where cars are not allowed. Anytime transit doesn't get some advantage over traffic it is slower because it has the same traffic plus the additional non-traffic stops it needs to make. For long distance trips transit is often faster.

The unfair advantage is not cost effective to grant to all cars, but still need to be acknowledged.

Re: Oslo had 0 pedestrian, 0 cyclist, 0 children and 1 driver trafic deaths in 2019

#265

Post by brenden2 »

It's interesting to see how effective lowering the speed limit is (which comes to no surprise). In NYC the speed limit is 25mph, but anecdotally speaking it's largely ignored. I have never seen much in the way of enforcement of those limits, at least in Manhattan.

Re: Oslo had 0 pedestrian, 0 cyclist, 0 children and 1 driver trafic deaths in 2019

#266

Post by blattimwind »

tootie wrote: post #185
nagash wrote: post #175

Here in Perth, Western Australia we have quite reasonable pedestrian right of way laws. But if you read the recommendations, you will notice the language talks about how it's basically still on you to not die. For example, pedestrians have right of way when crossing a street where a car may be turning in to, so there should really be no need to check across your shoulder for traffic. Most drivers don't seem aware of…

NYC has plenty of "laws" but the volume of people makes it impossible to thoroughly enforce. Plus we have so many people visiting from elsewhere. Our mayor adopted Vision Zero a few years ago and we're making improvements but we still have quite a lot of fatal accidents.

Traffic rules should perhaps not be a federalized matter; certainly not down to city level.

Re: Oslo had 0 pedestrian, 0 cyclist, 0 children and 1 driver trafic deaths in 2019

#267

Post by TomMarius »

jan_g wrote: post #218
TomMarius wrote: post #98

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I am not sure what you mean with this effectiveness. I live in Prague, the city with (what they say) one of the best public transport systems in the world, and yet, going to my workplace is 45 minutes by public transport and 15 minutes by car. Even though I live close to a subway and tram station, and the workplace is right in the city center, car still wins - where is the effectiveness you're talking about? This is…

It is (almost) the same for every city, if you compare driving times from suburbs to city centre. The reason is that city train/metro/tram needs to stop on 15+ stations before reaching the inner city. Still, to me, train is superior - I can just sit and relax. Driving is much more tiring. 15 minutes or so difference is not worth it.

In Prague, subway does not go to suburbs. Few trams do, but they do not reach the city centre. Not my case at all. The subway route I compare to car is 7 stops + 10 min walk.

Re: Oslo had 0 pedestrian, 0 cyclist, 0 children and 1 driver trafic deaths in 2019

#268

Post by [deleted] »

lolinder wrote: post #219
testplzignore wrote: post #211

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Where I live in the US, my understanding is that pedestrians always have the right of way at intersections (regardless of whether there are any traffic or pedestrian signals) unless: 1. There is a pedestrian signal that says to NOT cross, or 2. The traffic signal going in the direction the pedestrian is walking is red. So if the light is green and the pedestrian signal does not say to not cross, then the pedestrian h…

The problem I've seen is that (especially in suburbs where pedestrians are rarer) drivers don't check for pedestrians. Almost every time I'm walking for any length of time I nearly get hit by a car that assumes that a green light means they're free to turn right without any restrictions. This isn't me intentionally creating an unsafe situation (often I'm already in the intersection), it's drivers who see so few pedes…

[deleted]

Re: Oslo had 0 pedestrian, 0 cyclist, 0 children and 1 driver trafic deaths in 2019

#269

Post by blattimwind »

AdamHede wrote: post #8
mongol wrote: post #2

That is amazing. It is easy to imagine that safer cars have contributed most to this. But there are so many other factors.. emergency response, alcohol, road quality, weather... I wonder how it would break down, if it was possible to measure it all.

They also look at road section with abnormally high levels of accidents and are actually willing to chance road layout to more intuitive. It is a legitimate reason to change the curvature or build a bridge or additional exit in Norway "because it's difficult to drive in". It's really quite incredible, and combine that with safer cars, and you can really start to eat into traffic fatalities.

That's certainly not unique, though the amount of effort put into it will vary. In Germany a typical response to an accident hotspot might be putting up extra signage (e.g. no passing, lower speed limit, Difficult Curves Ahead), adding or moving/changing a traffic light, speedbumps, speed checks etc.

Major, expensive stuff like changing the routing or curvature is pretty rare and most likely to happen if the road is reworked anyway.

Re: Oslo had 0 pedestrian, 0 cyclist, 0 children and 1 driver trafic deaths in 2019

#270

Post by furyofantares »

MereInterest wrote: post #178
vegardx wrote: post #119

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Seems like a cultural problem, not a crosswalk light problem. Most people (myself included) automatically slow down when driving into a crosswalk. Our intersections are usually fairly small, so it's hard to build up any speed, even if you wanted to.

Oh, it is definitely a huge cultural problem. In the US, many drivers will ignore the existence of pedestrians altogether. For example, pulling up to an intersection and only looking to the left before making a right turn, because that is the only direction that car traffic can be coming from. It isn't every car by any means, but enough cars that pedestrians need to assume that drivers are incompetent until given evi…

And then also, many pedestrians see the walk sign and just start crossing while staring at their phone without even glancing around to be sure there aren't any inattentive drivers heading their way.
Post reply on HN