Helsinki records zero traffic deaths for full year • Hacker News Board

Re: Helsinki records zero traffic deaths for full year

#141

Post by eCa » Sat, Aug 02, 2025, 9:09 PM UTC

tlogan wrote: post #124

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 tra…

The question to ask is, why are there less cars?

Public transport. As an example, just the tram network had 57 million trips in 2019. The metro, 90+ million trips annually. The commuter rail network? 70+ million. (Source: wikipedia)

So yes. Urban planning has a hand or two in it.

Re: Helsinki records zero traffic deaths for full year

#142

Post by userbinator » Sat, Aug 02, 2025, 9:10 PM UTC

sapiogram wrote: post #50

Dig1t wrote: post #40

Earlier quoted context omitted.

[flagged]

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

And those with that intention are authoritarians that need to be kept out of government.

Re: Helsinki records zero traffic deaths for full year

#143

Post by perching_aix » Sat, Aug 02, 2025, 9:13 PM UTC

celeritascelery wrote: post #136

ccakes wrote: post #96

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The Nordics aren’t struggling at all in this area, they also have incredibly generous parental leave and subsidised child care systems.

All Nordic countries are well below replacement rates. They are definitely struggling.

So is the States with its car culture. Silly point to spiral around I'd say.

Re: Helsinki records zero traffic deaths for full year

#144

Post by jfengel » Sat, Aug 02, 2025, 9:14 PM UTC

skippyboxedhero wrote: post #132

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…

It isn't road design, it is behavioural/cultural. People will drive recklessly when they do not care, for whatever reason, about the people they may injure by doing so. That is it. If you look at comparisons between countries, it is clear that means are different.

There are people who don't care at all, but most people will drive around the speed that the road encourages. That includes things like how straight the road is, what kinds of interactions, the presence of sidewalks, trees, and many other clues.

Neighborhoods can be designed to send signals about the appropriate speed, without signs or rumble strips or speed bumps. Some people will ignore these, just as they'll ignore signs, but most drivers will do what they expect for that kind of road.

Re: Helsinki records zero traffic deaths for full year

#145

Post by skippyboxedhero » Sat, Aug 02, 2025, 9:15 PM UTC

mtrovo wrote: post #100

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…

Your example is definitely not a good example of global policies for a local problem. In Wales it was up to the local councils to identify areas that under proper safe circumstances would keep their different limits, defaulting to being reduced to 20mph if nothing was done. That's a very sensible way of handling it. I have no idea about your stats on driving without a licence being more of a problem than speeding, ac…

...you are just explaining that it was a global policy for a local problem. I don't know what to tell you. The global policy is 20mph.

It sounds like a big impact if you don't know anything about statistics because, obviously, you would need to know some measure of variance to work out whether a 19% YoY decrease was significant (and I don't believe the measure that reduced 19% was accidents either). This hasn't been reported deliberatel but that is a single year and that is within error. You, obviously, do need more policing...I am not sure why you assume that no policing is required.

People driving without a licence/insurance are more of a problem than someone going 30mph...obviously. Iirc, their rate for being involved in accidents is 5x higher. If you are caught doing either of these things though, the consequences are low. Competent driver going 30mph though? Terrible (there is also a reason why this is the case, unlicenced/uninsured driving is very prevalent in certain areas of the UK).

Re: Helsinki records zero traffic deaths for full year

#146

Post by jfengel » Sat, Aug 02, 2025, 9:15 PM UTC

dyauspitr wrote: post #56

tommoor wrote: post #41

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Drivers are actually calm in Helsinki, not constantly honking and slowly rolling into you in the pedestrian crossing either.

I rarely hear anyone in the US honking outside of maybe the downtown of really big cities like NYC.

NYC has really cracked down on excessive honking. It's nowhere near as bad as it used to be.

Shouting and middle fingers are still common.

Re: Helsinki records zero traffic deaths for full year

#147

Post by tlogan » Sat, Aug 02, 2025, 9:17 PM UTC

max_ wrote: post #35

"More than half of Helsinki’s streets now have speed limits of 30 km/h." This is the only secret. People over speeding is what kills.

The percentage of Asian drivers is less than 1%. Maybe that’s a bigger factor than the speed limit?

Apologies for the joke but I want to emphasize that there are so many variables at play here.

My theory is that it is because they have better public transportation and way less cars on the road.

Re: Helsinki records zero traffic deaths for full year

#148

Post by graemep » Sat, Aug 02, 2025, 9:18 PM UTC

PaulRobinson wrote: post #113

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 ha…

On the other hand the UK as a whole had a lower road traffic realted death rate than Finland did: https://www.gov.uk/government/statistics/reported-road-casua... The UK is not that different by comparison.

It is a pretty remarkable achievement though, and shows what can be done.

Re: Helsinki records zero traffic deaths for full year

#149

Post by SoftTalker » Sat, Aug 02, 2025, 9:18 PM UTC

ath3nd wrote: post #111

ARandomerDude wrote: post #74

Earlier quoted context omitted.

[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…

Some areas such as Amsterdam though are just naturally more ammenable to walking, cycling, and transit. Cycling in 90+ (F) temperatures with high humidity (very common in the summer in the US midwest or south), or even just walking very far or waiting very long for a bus is pretty miserable. I'd arrive at my destination literally dripping with sweat and really unpresentable.

Re: Helsinki records zero traffic deaths for full year

#150

Post by AnthonyMouse » Sat, Aug 02, 2025, 9:19 PM UTC

voxl wrote: post #72

AnthonyMouse wrote: post #67

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"Slippery slope is a logical fallacy" is a logical fallacy. "Doing the proposed thing makes a bad thing easier or more likely" is a valid concern.

Slippery Slope is a logical fallacy. This is an undeniable fact. There is no syllogistic, propositional, predicate, or type theoretic argument you can make that uses a slippery slope to derive a theorem. Of course, we are not doing proper logic, which is why I balk at bringing up fallacies anyway, it's bad form and idiotic. Nevertheless, the argument that we shouldn't try to improve safety on the roads because that w…

A logical fallacy is a form of argument where the conclusion doesn't follow even if the premises are satisfied.

The premises of the slippery slope argument are that a) doing X makes Y more likely, and b) Y is bad. The conclusion to be drawn is that doing X has a negative consequence, namely making the bad thing more likely, which actually follows whenever the premises are satisfied.