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Helsinki just went a full year without a single traffic death

politico.eu

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Re: Helsinki just went a full year without a single traffic death

#11

Post by cyberax »

gizmov21 wrote: post #5
cyberax wrote: post #3

Meanwhile, pedestrian deaths are up in all the large coastal US cities that went full-on with the "Zero Vision" policies. Seattle, Portland, SF enshittified their roads, limited the traffic speed, choked the streets with bike lanes, drank all the KoolAid. Yet the deaths _increased_.

[flagged]

Quick question: are you an urbanist?

> "The city saw 25 traffic deaths in 2025, down from 43 in 2024"

The number of traffic deaths in SF in 2016 before the main enshittification started: 30. Deaths in 2017: 20.

Here's a chart for Seattle: https://wtsc.wa.gov/dashboards/fatalities-dashboard/ - it went from 6 fatalities in 2016 to 20 fatalities last year.

Same for Portland, it went up from 13 to 22.

Sorry, but the data is completely unambiguous. The Zero Vision policies _at_ _best_ had no effect, and at worst resulted in additional deaths.

Re: Helsinki just went a full year without a single traffic death

#12

Post by hsyehbeidhh »

gizmov21 wrote: post #5
cyberax wrote: post #3

Meanwhile, pedestrian deaths are up in all the large coastal US cities that went full-on with the "Zero Vision" policies. Seattle, Portland, SF enshittified their roads, limited the traffic speed, choked the streets with bike lanes, drank all the KoolAid. Yet the deaths _increased_.

[flagged]

[dead]

Re: Helsinki just went a full year without a single traffic death

#13

Post by philip1209 »

Oslo has been doing this for years.

I wrote a blog post about my learnings there - "Engineering over enforcement":

> Enforcement philosophy is rooted in the idea that behavior can be controlled by threatening punishments. Engineering philosophy believes that infrastructure can be designed to incentivize desired behavior. When Oslo sought to reduce pedestrian deaths, it turned to engineers.

> [ . . .] Intersections are one small example where philosophies can diverge. But, as I learned in Oslo, engineers have a whole toolkit of methods to make cities safer. Bumping out a curb slows down turning speeds and protects pedestrians. Bike lanes can be safer by being raised above the street instead of relying on a painted barrier. Limiting how far cars can see ahead of them slows them down. Behavior can be designed rather than just enforced, and in aggregate these small changes can make a city safer.

https://www.contraption.co/engineering-over-enforcement/

Re: Helsinki just went a full year without a single traffic death

#14

Post by pixl97 »

suzdude wrote: post #10

It is sad how little U.S. voters seem to care about anyone but themselves. Near everything the Finns are dong could be done in here, but too many voices would complain about the cost, the paternalism, or how they might be slightly inconvenienced. Those seem like harder challenges then the changes themselves.

Greed is good! Anything that's not greed is socialism and we can't have that now, can we.

Re: Helsinki just went a full year without a single traffic death

#15

Post by cyberax »

hn_user82179 wrote: post #6
cyberax wrote: post #3

Meanwhile, pedestrian deaths are up in all the large coastal US cities that went full-on with the "Zero Vision" policies. Seattle, Portland, SF enshittified their roads, limited the traffic speed, choked the streets with bike lanes, drank all the KoolAid. Yet the deaths _increased_.

Where are your stats from? Pedestrian deaths across the US are at near all-time highs, but in contrast SF reports drops: https://www.sfchronicle.com/projects/2026/pedestrian-fatalit...

Sigh. You people are like these climate change deniers who are saying that "the climate is cooling" because this year is slightly cooler than the previous one.

Your own article has a chart with the number of deaths by year, and the noisy upward trend from 2016 is pretty clear. But I admit that I did not check the data for 2025 before I wrote my post.

So my post can be amended to: "Increased or stayed the same". There is definitely no _decrease_ compared to the previous state.

Re: Helsinki just went a full year without a single traffic death

#16

Post by mooreds »

philip1209 wrote: post #13

Oslo has been doing this for years. I wrote a blog post about my learnings there - "Engineering over enforcement": > Enforcement philosophy is rooted in the idea that behavior can be controlled by threatening punishments. Engineering philosophy believes that infrastructure can be designed to incentivize desired behavior. When Oslo sought to reduce pedestrian deaths, it turned to engineers. > [ . . .] Intersections ar…

AKA "make the right things easy" and "build sensible defaults" rather than "all the responsibility is the individuals".

Re: Helsinki just went a full year without a single traffic death

#17

Post by Supermancho »

cyberax wrote: post #11
gizmov21 wrote: post #5

Earlier quoted context omitted.

[flagged]

Quick question: are you an urbanist? > "The city saw 25 traffic deaths in 2025, down from 43 in 2024" The number of traffic deaths in SF in 2016 before the main enshittification started: 30. Deaths in 2017: 20. Here's a chart for Seattle: https://wtsc.wa.gov/dashboards/fatalities-dashboard/ - it went from 6 fatalities in 2016 to 20 fatalities last year. Same for Portland, it went up from 13 to 22. Sorry, but the data…

> Sorry, but the data is completely unambiguous.

Focusing on the metrics you want to focus on, does not make the data unambiguous. eg This analysis has not accounted for cohort sizing. Are there more or less pedestrians? What is the average distance? How many bicyclists? et al.

Re: Helsinki just went a full year without a single traffic death

#18

Post by maest »

RandallBrown wrote: post #8

I can't say I'd be excited about 19 mph speed limits enforced by cameras, but I don't doubt it would work. I'd love for my city to just focus on making other forms of transportation more appealing. More bus lanes, more (properly designed) bike lanes, etc.

Why do you need to go faster in a city center?

Re: Helsinki just went a full year without a single traffic death

#19

Post by tazu »

suzdude wrote: post #10

It is sad how little U.S. voters seem to care about anyone but themselves. Near everything the Finns are dong could be done in here, but too many voices would complain about the cost, the paternalism, or how they might be slightly inconvenienced. Those seem like harder challenges then the changes themselves.

[flagged]

Re: Helsinki just went a full year without a single traffic death

#20

Post by cyberax »

philip1209 wrote: post #13

Oslo has been doing this for years. I wrote a blog post about my learnings there - "Engineering over enforcement": > Enforcement philosophy is rooted in the idea that behavior can be controlled by threatening punishments. Engineering philosophy believes that infrastructure can be designed to incentivize desired behavior. When Oslo sought to reduce pedestrian deaths, it turned to engineers. > [ . . .] Intersections ar…

[flagged]
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