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

Re: Helsinki records zero traffic deaths for full year

#191

Post by Muromec » Sat, Aug 02, 2025, 9:45 PM UTC

jerlam wrote: post #9

calmbonsai wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I can't see how a 20 km/h difference can't not make a difference averaged over so many commuter-miles, but I'm not a city planner or traffic engineer.

The average commute is not entirely within the streets with the 30 km/h speed limit. City planners usually try to route car traffic away from residential areas and places with large numbers of pedestrians, through arterials, freeways, and the like, which will have a higher speed limit.

Most of Amsterdam is 30 km, including through roads. But it's Amsterdam through roads, so it's mostly two lines one way, a dedicated tram track in between, trees that separate the road from a bike path and all that. Actual in-district roads where unsupervised 8 year olds are cycling to school and back are 15 km/h.

Re: Helsinki records zero traffic deaths for full year

#192

Post by AnthonyMouse » Sat, Aug 02, 2025, 9:47 PM UTC

perching_aix wrote: post #166

AnthonyMouse wrote: post #150

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Slippery_slope > This type of argument is sometimes used as a form of fear mongering in which the probable consequences of a given action are exaggerated in an attempt to scare the audience. When the initial step is not demonstrably likely to result in the claimed effects, this is called the slippery slope fallacy. > This is a type of informal fallacy, and is a subset of the continuum fa…

Calling it an "informal fallacy" would still make it not a logical fallacy. The slippery slope argument is correct whenever the premises are satisfied.

It's possible in some cases that the conclusion is weak, e.g. if Y is a negative outcome but not a very significant one, but that doesn't make it a fallacy and in particular doesn't justify dismissing arguments of that form as a fallacy when X does make Y significantly more likely and Y is a significant concern.

Re: Helsinki records zero traffic deaths for full year

#193

Post by seanmcdirmid » Sat, Aug 02, 2025, 9:47 PM UTC

matsemann wrote: post #180

deadbabe wrote: post #174

Earlier quoted context omitted.

[flagged]

Stats doesn't agree with you. At least in the EU this is the matrix of vehicle types and deaths: https://road-safety.transport.ec.europa.eu/document/download...

I wouldn’t think of rare American cyclists being comparable to more common European cyclists. Especially if we are talking about a bike messenger in NYC vs a commuter in Amsterdam.

Re: Helsinki records zero traffic deaths for full year

#194

Post by Muromec » Sat, Aug 02, 2025, 9:47 PM UTC

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.

>You could ban cars entirely. Why wouldn't you? Would you rather people die than drive cars at all?

We don't even ban drugs here and cars are more useful than drugs. It's all about harm reduction and diminishing returns. Also, autoluwe (but not autovrije) districts exist and are a selling point when buying/renting a house, so your attempt at a strawman is rather amusing.

Re: Helsinki records zero traffic deaths for full year

#195

Post by analog31 » Sat, Aug 02, 2025, 9:48 PM UTC

whateveracct wrote: post #179

deadbabe wrote: post #174

Earlier quoted context omitted.

[flagged]

Cyclists switch between pedestrian and car rules at will. I see them blow stop signs and lights constantly.

What I've noticed is that everybody skirts rules for convenience, but the offenses are different because the conditions are different.

Cars break the speed limit, look at their phones (easy to see from a cyclist's vantage point) and roll through stop signs, because those things are possible and convenient. Very few drivers are fully in control of their cars in fast, congested traffic, which is why "rear enders" seem to happen frequently.

Bikes roll through stop signs and invent their own shortcuts because those are convenient, but exceeding the speed limit is impossible for most of us.

Re: Helsinki records zero traffic deaths for full year

#196

Post by bichiliad » Sat, Aug 02, 2025, 9:50 PM UTC

whateveracct wrote: post #179

deadbabe wrote: post #174

Earlier quoted context omitted.

[flagged]

Cyclists switch between pedestrian and car rules at will. I see them blow stop signs and lights constantly.

I’d argue that neither set of rules is made for them, so it’s not surprising that they take the most convenient of the two. Plus, it’s not out of the question to have laws in which red lights act like stop signs and stop signs act like yield signs specifically for cyclists[1]. It’s also likely less dangerous if that’s the case[2].

[1]: https://www.bicyclecolorado.org/colorado-safety-stop-becomes...

[2]: https://www.theguardian.com/uk/2010/may/21/women-cyclists-mo...

Re: Helsinki records zero traffic deaths for full year

#197

Post by Muromec » Sat, Aug 02, 2025, 9:51 PM UTC

ath3nd wrote: post #118

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 workplac…

Take better from both worlds -- 1 hour bike commute and save on healthcare costs too.

Re: Helsinki records zero traffic deaths for full year

#198

Post by perching_aix » Sat, Aug 02, 2025, 9:51 PM UTC

userbinator wrote: post #142

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.

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

I don't claim to have the perfect definition for authoritarian behavior, but I would say that intending to consolidate authority is pretty key to it. Which making drivers' life miserable isn't really connected to, or at least I really don't see it.

Otherwise, the typical government is a central authority made up of people, carrying out lawmaking, adjudication, and enforcement activities [0], and so basically all of them could be characterized this way, with sufficient bad faith. So I'm not sure that's a very meaningful claim.

It definitely could be a misuse of power regardless though, but there's no evidence that I see in your comment that would suggest it was the officials in question misusing their powers rather than aligning with community sentiment or interests.

[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Separation_of_powers

Re: Helsinki records zero traffic deaths for full year

#199

Post by mhb » Sat, Aug 02, 2025, 9:52 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.

This is no secret. The slower transportation is, the safer it is. Those aren't the only parameters though. There is a cost to making the speed limit arbitrarily low. Without discussing what the cost is, this is a bit of a pointless discussion.

Re: Helsinki records zero traffic deaths for full year

#200

Post by Muromec » Sat, Aug 02, 2025, 9:53 PM UTC

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…

>Speed cameras in practice will use ALPR

s/will/are/