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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

#121

Post by perching_aix »

cluckindan wrote: post #107
crote wrote: post #94

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> People who are likely to have crashes are likely to be able who ignore the limit. ... which is why you have to do actual road design. You can't just put up a speed sign and hope people will magically abide by it. Roads need to be designed for the speed you want people to drive. When done properly the vast majority of drivers will follow the speed limit without ever having to look at the signs, because it'll be the…

Proper design of road networks also makes traffic flow better. Many congested areas would actually benefit from removing some roads altogether.

I believe you're referring to Braess' Paradox, right? This was a very surprising effect for me to learn about, just recently Veritasium covered it in their video on a mechanism that becomes "shorter when you pull on it": https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-QTkPfq7w1A

[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Braess%27_paradox

Re: Helsinki records zero traffic deaths for full year

#122

Post by CalRobert »

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…

Are you a car?

Re: Helsinki records zero traffic deaths for full year

#123

Post by wolfhumble »

ozim wrote: post #14
elygre wrote: post #5

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The below article is in Norwegian, but has many references at the end. Apparently people are overwhelmingly happy, so it seems inappropriate to talk about «hurting quality of life». https://www.tiltak.no/d-flytte-eller-regulere-trafikk/d2-reg...

[flagged]

HN Guidelines: > Be kind. Don't be snarky. Converse curiously; don't cross-examine. Edit out swipes.

Re: Helsinki records zero traffic deaths for full year

#124

Post by tlogan »

Maybe Helsinki isn’t special: just fewer cars. And they apparently only 21% of daily trips used a private car.

Helsinki has about 3x fewer vehicles per capita than the average U.S. city. So it’s not surprising it’s safer since fewer cars mean fewer chances of getting hit by one. Plus their cars are much smaller.

In fact, there are probably plenty of U.S. towns and cities with similar number of cars that have zero traffic deaths (quick search says that Jersey City, New Jersey has zero traffic deaths in 2022).

So maybe it’s not about urban planning genius or Scandinavian magic. Maybe it’s just: fewer things that can kill you on the road.

I wonder how the numbers will change when majority of cars are autonomous.

Re: Helsinki records zero traffic deaths for full year

#125

Post by YZF »

aDyslecticCrow wrote: post #89
Nurbek-F wrote: post #21

Someone has to put a chart near it, describing the decline in driving in the city. When you're limited to 30kmh, you might as well get a scooter...

Most of your commute through a city is turning, accelerating and waiting in traffic. 30km/h or 50km/h makes every little difference in your commute times. When getting on a larger road with less twists and turns, the speed is higher and the gains of the speed is higher; but the danger is also lower. Any road that may stop to wait for a turn or red light, could probably be capped to 30km/h without much cost to your pr…

I have a few km getting out of my city to the highway as part of my commute and then quite a few kms in the city I'm commuting to. This is a pretty typical North American experience (I'm in the Greater Vancouver area). There is no realistic transit option, my 30 minute car drive would be 2 hours on transit each way.

So let's say 10km (might be a bit more) in city traffic. 12 minutes of my commute each way [EDIT: impacted by speed limit, not counting lights, corners etc.] Total 24 minutes. That would turn into 20 minutes each way, total 40 minutes. Huge difference.

Most of this "city" driving is in streets that are plenty wide (sometimes 3 lanes each way with a separation between directions) and have minimal to no pedestrian traffic. On the smaller streets you're probably not doing 50 anyways even if that's the limit since it will feel too fast.

Vancouver has been looking at reducing speed in the city to 30km/hr. It's hard to say if it will reduce traffic deaths (maybe?) but it's going to have some pretty negative economic effects IMO. Some of the smaller streets are 30 anyways. There are probably smarter solutions but city and road planners don't seem to be able to find them.

I'm willing to bet Helsinki is denser and has much better transit.

Re: Helsinki records zero traffic deaths for full year

#126

Post by CalRobert »

dataflow wrote: post #48
voxl wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Your argument is really "I'd rather people die then drive through your city slower."????

You could ban cars entirely. Why wouldn't you? Would you rather people die than drive cars at all? I'm not agreeing or disagreeing with the parent here; I'm just saying your rebuttal is a strawman.

Honestly that would be great.

Re: Helsinki records zero traffic deaths for full year

#127

Post by skippyboxedhero »

arp242 wrote: post #110
skippyboxedhero wrote: post #59

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Other places have introduced the same limit and haven't seen the same results. People who are likely to have crashes are likely to be able who ignore the limit. One of the biggest problems in modern policy-making is the introduction of wide-ranging, global policies to tackle a local problem (one place that introduced this limit was Wales, they introduced this limit impacting everyone...but don't do anything about the…

"First 20mph year sees 100 fewer killed or badly hurt" https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/c78w1891z03o So no, what you're saying is bollocks. And no one ever claimed that speed limits are the only solution.

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Re: Helsinki records zero traffic deaths for full year

#128

Post by jonasdegendt »

mikkom wrote: post #88
k_g_b_ wrote: post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

https://www.tomtom.com/traffic-index/ranking/ 30 km/h is equal to 20 min/10km, 50 km/h is 12 min/10km. So Helsinki city center is at 21km/h travel speeds, metro area at 31km/h. A speed limit of 30 km/h doesn't really affect these travel times much. I can't find 2023 data to compare, however by other data on the net these are very common average speeds for any city in Europe even those with plenty of 50 km/h speed lim…

I live in helsinki and nowhere it is 20 kmh that I know of. Might be some random streets in center. And 30km/h streets are smaller living streets that driving that speed comes almost automatically. Major ringways and main roads are 80 kmh btw I have driven in many many countries - Helsinki does not feel slower than any place I have driven, faster in fact because there rarely are traffic jams

I reckon he means that the average speed when driving through the city centre is 21 km/h, given that you’re stopping at lights and stuff.

Re: Helsinki records zero traffic deaths for full year

#130

Post by chmod775 »

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?

This is about driving in a city: you spend most of your time accelerating, decelerating, and waiting at intersections. 30 vs 50 km/h doesn't make much of a difference - travel time does not scale linearly with it.
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