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Helsinki records zero traffic deaths for full year

helsinkitimes.fi

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Re: Helsinki records zero traffic deaths for full year

#111

Post by ath3nd »

ARandomerDude wrote: post #74
connicpu wrote: post #57

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Great, scooters are much less likely to kill pedestrians during collisions. I'm glad more people who didn't actually need 2 ton metal boxes are downsizing to something more practical.

[flagged]

> Make it hard for people to have families and society will collapse

I used to live in Amsterdam which has a great public transport, great cycling paths, and limits of 30km/h. People are going cycling to school, on dates, and picnic with their families. Associating having a 3 ton gas guzzler as a prerequisite of having a family and a roadblock of "society" is only a question of poor imagination.

https://www.yahoo.com/lifestyle/six-health-lessons-learn-net...

There are multiple reasons Americans are obese as hell and living shorter than us Europeans, and driving everywhere is one of it.

Re: Helsinki records zero traffic deaths for full year

#112

Post by jamiek88 »

ARandomerDude wrote: post #74
connicpu wrote: post #57

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Great, scooters are much less likely to kill pedestrians during collisions. I'm glad more people who didn't actually need 2 ton metal boxes are downsizing to something more practical.

[flagged]

This has to be the most American comment ever.

Society will collapse no less due to minor inconveniences!!

Re: Helsinki records zero traffic deaths for full year

#113

Post by PaulRobinson »

I was in Helsinki for work a couple of years ago, walking back to my hotel with some colleagues after a few hours drinking (incredibly expensive, but quite nice), beer.

It was around midnight and we happened to come across a very large mobile crane on the pavement blocking our way. As we stepped out (carefully), into the road to go around it, one of my Finnish colleagues started bemoaning that no cones or barriers had been put out to safely shepherd pedestrians around it. I was very much "yeah, they're probably only here for a quick job, probably didn't have time for that", because I'm a Londoner and, well, that's what we do in London.

My colleague is like "No, that's not acceptable", and he literally pulls out his phone and calls the police. As we carry on on our way, a police car comes up the road and pulls over to have a word with the contractors.

They take the basics safely over there in a way I've not seen anywhere else. When you do that, you get the benefits.

Re: Helsinki records zero traffic deaths for full year

#114

Post by CalRobert »

jmkni wrote: post #87
sapiogram wrote: post #50

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Making drivers miserable is part of the intention, they want people to drive less because it's annoying as hell for everyone else.

That's fine if the public transport is up to scratch, as well as the cycling infrastructure. Where I live it's woefully inadequate making driving the only viable option for most journeys. This has a knock on effect of making cycling down right dangerous in places, because of all the cars + relatively high speed limits, like I wouldn't want to cycle from my house to work, it would be at best unpleasant, and I would be…

Streets with low speeds are themselves decent bike infrastructure.

Re: Helsinki records zero traffic deaths for full year

#115

Post by crote »

AnthonyMouse wrote: post #66
GuB-42 wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> So they hurt quality of life by making it more painful to get anywhere No, they only made it more painful to get into the city streets by car. And probably not by much, as it only matters if you are not stuck in traffic or waiting at a red light. Helsinki is a walkable city with good public transport, cars are not the only option. > Mass surveillance under the ever present and weak excuse of “safety” Speed traps (t…

> Speed traps (that's probably what is talked about here) are a very targeted from of surveillance, only taking pictures of speeding vehicles. Speed cameras in practice will use ALPR, and by the time the hardware capable of doing ALPR is installed, they'll then have the incentive to record every passing vehicle in a database whether it was speeding or not, and whether or not they're "allowed" to do that when the came…

So get the government to purchase speed traps with photo cameras instead of video cameras, triggered by a speed detection loop in the road itself. You know, just like speed traps have been working for decades?

Heck, just leave the ALPR part out of the cameras altogether in order to save costs: have them upload the images to an ALPR service running somewhere in the cloud. You're probably already going to need the uploading part anyways in order to provide evidence, so why even bother with local ALPR?

Re: Helsinki records zero traffic deaths for full year

#116

Post by CalRobert »

ARandomerDude wrote: post #74
connicpu wrote: post #57

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Great, scooters are much less likely to kill pedestrians during collisions. I'm glad more people who didn't actually need 2 ton metal boxes are downsizing to something more practical.

[flagged]

Ah yes, because mowing down kids is somehow pro family?

I live car free in a Dutch suburb with two small kids and do so specifically so our kids could have a better life than crappy American suburbia.

Re: Helsinki records zero traffic deaths for full year

#118

Post by ath3nd »

SilverElfin wrote: post #2

> More than half of Helsinki’s streets now have speed limits of 30 km/h. Fifty years ago, the majority were limited to 50 km/h. So they hurt quality of life by making it more painful to get anywhere, taking time away from everyone’s lives. You can achieve no traffic deaths by slowing everyone to a crawl. That doesn’t make it useful or good. The goal should be fast travel times and easy driving while also still reduci…

> So they hurt quality of life by making it more painful to get anywhere, taking time away from everyone’s lives

The average American mind can't comprehend European public transport and not sitting in a traffic jam and smog for 1 hr to go to their workplace. Some of us walk or cycle for 15 min on our commutes, and some of us even ride bicycles with our children to school. It takes me as much time to reach my workplace with a bike as with a car if you take parking, and one of those things makes me fitter and is for free.

I guess that's one of the reasons people in the US live shorter and sadder than us Europeans. Being stuck in traffic sure makes people grumpy.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_life_expe...

https://worldpopulationreview.com/country-rankings/happiest-...

Re: Helsinki records zero traffic deaths for full year

#119

Post by crote »

AnthonyMouse wrote: post #70
moralestapia wrote: post #3

Earlier quoted context omitted.

50 km/h to 30 km/h on a city commute doesn't make a substantial difference. If you're willing to risk people dying just to get to your preferred McDonald's three minutes earlier, then the problem is you.

> 50 km/h to 30 km/h on a city commute doesn't make a substantial difference. This seems like a weird argument. If your commute is an hour at 50 km/h then it's an hour and 40 minutes at 30 km/h, every day, each way. That seems like... quite a lot?

That's not how it works. It's a 30km/h speed limit for one kilometer in your local neighbourhood until you hit the first through road, then it'll be 50km/h / 60km/h / 80 km/h / 120 km/h as usual, and another one kilometer at 30 km/h at your destination.

In other words, it's 2km at 30km/h plus 48km at 80km/h, versus 2km at 50km/h plus 48km at 80km/h. That's a difference of 1 minute 36 seconds.

Re: Helsinki records zero traffic deaths for full year

#120

Post by CalRobert »

mattlondon wrote: post #34
thomascountz wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A 30 km/h limit and decline in driving means zero people have to die. If enforcing scooters meant zero people have to die, I'm not sure what the objection is, truly.

Scooters kill people too (often the drivers themselves but not always). The problem with escooters is that basically any accident is "bad" since you have no protection while you toodle along at 15.5mph. Not just slamming into the ground, but into street furniture, trees, building, bikes - you name it. A helmet (which no one wears) is not going to help you if you wrap your abdomen around a solid metal bench at 15.5mph…

Not sure I’d say blood bath but here’s some data

https://www.gov.uk/government/statistics/reported-road-casua...

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