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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

#101

Post by autoexec »

wileydragonfly wrote: post #81
enaaem wrote: post #70

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Amsterdam also reduced many roads from 50 to 30 kmph. Accidents have reduced by 11% and travel time has only increased 1-5%. That is less than one minute on a 20 minute trip. https://openresearch.amsterdam/nl/page/124453/onderzoeksrapp...

A 40% reduction in speed only causes a 5% increase in travel time? Are the majority of car trips spent sitting at stop lights??

Maybe people got so frustrated by having to drive at a snails pace that it became preferable and/or faster to just use other modes of transportation which cut down on traffic improving travel times?

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

#102

Post by kerkeslager »

SilverElfin wrote: post #68

These data free claims don’t ever honestly talk about how they simply made driving so inefficient and bad on purpose so that the other, slower modes, don’t look as bad. Increasing travel times and inconvenience isn’t a win and safetyism is irrational. If you can’t make fast driving safer you haven’t achieved anything really. And as for vision zero - you’ll never get perfect safety and it isn’t worth the tradeoffs.

And speediots' data free claims don't ever honestly talk about how they're totally okay with letting thousands of people die every year so they can save a few seconds that they're just going to waste posting their self-centered opinions to Hacker News.

There's no ethical justification for speeding--you're just okay with being unethical if it allows you to not have to learn patience.

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

#103

Post by autoexec »

bokchoi wrote: post #9
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_.

Pedestrian deaths in Seattle did rise last year, however there were zero bicycle related fatalities which is good.

There was at least one bike death last year (https://www.seattlebikeblog.com/2025/12/14/person-biking-on-...) at least one this year (https://www.capitolhillseattle.com/2026/02/woman-hit-and-kil...) but it looks like 2024 might have been a year with no bicycle related fatalities.

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

#104

Post by efebarlas »

irishcoffee wrote: post #57
piva00 wrote: post #36

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How have average car sizes and weight changed in this period of time?

You're asking the wrong question. The answer is 10% The interesting question is power-to-weight, which was (apparently) a direct result of EPA regulations that were enacted in 1975. The below article, which I found from a search engine copying your question and looking at a few results, is an interesting read. Ignoring all that, the actual question would be: how have car sizes and weights changed _in this region_ dur…

this is a great thread

it’s hard to isolate the effect size of policy, covid happened, car weights changed, policing may have decreased, US drivers may have driven differently, population size, etc.

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

#105

Post by fnord77 »

ggggffggggg wrote: post #99
fnord77 wrote: post #53

Earlier quoted context omitted.

not sure why you're getting downvoted. Traffic deaths in SF definitely went up after "Vision Zero" was implemented

As someone living in SF since before it was implemented, getting the causality right and excluding cofounders seems VERY hard. Things have changed so much here since the early 00s.

the rise of drivers on their phones

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

#106

Post by cyberax »

ggggffggggg wrote: post #99
fnord77 wrote: post #53

Earlier quoted context omitted.

not sure why you're getting downvoted. Traffic deaths in SF definitely went up after "Vision Zero" was implemented

As someone living in SF since before it was implemented, getting the causality right and excluding cofounders seems VERY hard. Things have changed so much here since the early 00s.

We're not talking about 2003 or something. The Zero Vision-related programs started getting serious around 2016. Deep into the iPhone era.

And there are also other facts that point out to Zero Vision being the case. Cities that did not go all-in on this program seem not to have experienced the rise in deaths. I have not researched this in detail, because quantifying the level of road sabotage is tricky. But it definitely _looks_ like it's the case just based on subjective observations.

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

#107

Post by milch »

RickS wrote: post #30
efebarlas wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I want to learn more about “it did not work in the us… excess deaths” Do you have a link handy for this?

https://www.elkandelk.com/washington/seattle-car-accident-st... Since it started in 2015, accidents are down 50%, but deaths up 90%. This analysis leaves a lot to be desired. I didn't see per-capita stats (Seattle had massive growth during a lot of those years), and we don't really enforce traffic laws at all anyway, so IDK what to think without digging in further.

I live in Seattle and anecdotally I have seen the number of people running red lights absolutely explode in the last two years. Literally from seeing once or twice pre-COVID to at least one a day. This is not an exaggeration, there's a particular light on my commute that I see at least one driver run per day. My theory is that in an effort to make the intersection safer they adjusted the lights so now there's a period where cars all have a red light while pedestrians are crossing. Meanwhile a certain segment of the population sees all cars in the intersection stopped and decides to slam it. It's a recipe for disaster given there's a middle school down the road from that light...

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

#108

Post by enaaem »

wileydragonfly wrote: post #81
enaaem wrote: post #70

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Amsterdam also reduced many roads from 50 to 30 kmph. Accidents have reduced by 11% and travel time has only increased 1-5%. That is less than one minute on a 20 minute trip. https://openresearch.amsterdam/nl/page/124453/onderzoeksrapp...

A 40% reduction in speed only causes a 5% increase in travel time? Are the majority of car trips spent sitting at stop lights??

That’s because within cities, junctions are the bottleneck and not the max speed.

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

#109

Post by tomhow »

tazu wrote: post #19
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]

We've banned this account. HN is not the place for this kind of rhetoric, and looking down your comment history, there is a recurring pattern of this kind of comments that we can't allow to continue.

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

#110

Post by Markoff »

Helsinki has population 690K as they mention in the article, while Berlin with 5 deaths 3.7M and also many people commuting, so it's not really that big of an achievement.

Also the article is missing their definition of traffic death, here in Prague is basically impossible, even if cars killed nobody people jump in front of the trams and buses (let alone suicides in subway thanks to no platform doors) and limiting trams and everyone to like 20-30kmph would make transportation even worse than it is.

Plus all European countries define traffic death differently, if car will hit you and you won't die immediately you won't be counted as traffic death if you die after 2, 4 weeks or more depending on country, so I would question all these stats since I find it hard to imagine there can be zero traffic deaths in 700K city.

EDIT: Gemini says: "In Norway, a road traffic death is defined as any person killed immediately or dying within 30 days of a road traffic accident, including drivers, passengers, cyclists, and pedestrians."

So if you will be in coma for a while and die after one month you are not traffic death anymore. Though it seems France, Germany, Czechia and maybe US ("While NHTSA uses a 30-day cutoff for "traffic fatalities", the National Safety Council (NSC) uses a 1-year cutoff for "motor-vehicle-related deaths," which can lead to higher, more comprehensive total fatality numbers.") uses same definition.

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