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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

#271

Post by devilbunny »

wpm wrote: post #18
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.

You don’t need to be either. Suppose a trip is 5km. At 50km/h, that trip takes 6 minutes. At 30km/h, that trip takes 10 minutes. In practice, this naive way of calculating this doesn’t even reflect reality, because odds are the average speed of a driver through Helsinki was around 30km/h anyways. Going 50km/h between red lights doesn’t actually make your trip faster.

> Going 50km/h between red lights doesn’t actually make your trip faster

Except when it does, due to horrible traffic engineering practices.

There were a pair of one-way streets in the downtown of my city. Both attempted to have "green wave" setups for the lights. One worked pretty well, the other was okay, but whatever.

The problem was that the road itself was signed at 30 mph, but the lights were timed at 40 mph. It literally encouraged people to speed if it were not too busy (e.g., after business hours).

Re: Helsinki records zero traffic deaths for full year

#272

Post by AnimalMuppet »

devilbunny wrote: post #271
wpm wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You don’t need to be either. Suppose a trip is 5km. At 50km/h, that trip takes 6 minutes. At 30km/h, that trip takes 10 minutes. In practice, this naive way of calculating this doesn’t even reflect reality, because odds are the average speed of a driver through Helsinki was around 30km/h anyways. Going 50km/h between red lights doesn’t actually make your trip faster.

> Going 50km/h between red lights doesn’t actually make your trip faster Except when it does, due to horrible traffic engineering practices. There were a pair of one-way streets in the downtown of my city. Both attempted to have "green wave" setups for the lights. One worked pretty well, the other was okay, but whatever. The problem was that the road itself was signed at 30 mph, but the lights were timed at 40 mph. I…

I saw the reverse once. Some town in the (US) Midwest when I was a kid. Downtown had signs that said "The traffic lights are synced for 25 MPH". It wasn't a speed limit, just a statement. When you figured out that they were telling the truth, you started driving 25.

Re: Helsinki records zero traffic deaths for full year

#273

Post by socalgal2 »

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.

It was common in Shanghai. Then the government made it illegal and actually enforced it. 2 months later, no honking

Re: Helsinki records zero traffic deaths for full year

#274

Post by stetrain »

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…

> Maybe Helsinki isn’t special: just fewer cars

That is special for a modern western city, and is likely the result of intentional policy and urban planning.

Many cities base most of their development around fitting in more cars, not reducing them. And that comes with lots of negative statistics related to car density.

You’re right that it’s not magic. Other cities could likely achieve similar results with similar policies. They are just very resistant to that change.

Re: Helsinki records zero traffic deaths for full year

#275

Post by panick21_ »

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…

> not about urban planning genius or Scandinavian magic

Fewer cars IS THE MAGIC and fewer cars IS GREAT URBAN planning.

Re: Helsinki records zero traffic deaths for full year

#276

Post by panick21_ »

eCa wrote: post #141
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.

Even places with good public transport have lots of cars. Cars always fill up all space. You need good public transport, and limit cars in other ways for good results.

Re: Helsinki records zero traffic deaths for full year

#277

Post by Ray20 »

jdiff wrote: post #212
userbinator wrote: post #142

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

Authoritarian has a definition, it's not just "people who make laws that keep me from doing what I want." People in the USA still complain in the same way today about laws mandating seat belt usage, but it's still not authoritarian. It's a net positive for the wearer and everyone around them, and it's incredibly childish to push back on something for no other reason than because someone is telling you to do it.

>It's a net positive for the wearer and everyone around them

This is literally the argument autocrats use for any authoritarian law they pass.

Re: Helsinki records zero traffic deaths for full year

#278

Post by throwaway9832 »

sophia01 wrote: post #220
graemep wrote: post #148

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

> The UK is not that different by comparison. Do note that the UK is 15.6x as dense as Finland, and the climate is quite different: e.g. in Helsinki (southermost city) mean daily temperature is below freezing point 4/12 months of the year (very consequential for driving). E.g. in Scotland even the mean daily minimum does not cross freezing point in any month. OECD data has Finland at 0.36 fatalities per 10k vehicles…

[flagged]

Re: Helsinki records zero traffic deaths for full year

#279

Post by throwaway9832 »

pavlov wrote: post #227
rozab wrote: post #201

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I would guess Finnish deaths are inflated by the rural rallying culture though, hard to compare

Yes, in rural Finland 17-year-old boys who just got their license regularly end up killing themselves and their friends by reckless driving. I believe there is cultural issue with boys’ upbringing. Recently my 8-year-old daughter was spending a week with her mother’s relatives in middle Finland. One day she sent me a picture of an old Volvo in a ditch. “Guess what dad, my cousin drove it off the road and I was in the…

10 is plenty old enough to drive under supervision. We used to send people to war at 16.

The idea of stopping people from driving until 18 is infantilisation.

Re: Helsinki records zero traffic deaths for full year

#280

Post by Ray20 »

perching_aix wrote: post #198
userbinator wrote: post #142

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 t…

In my understanding, authoritarianism is not only defined by the desire to strengthen their own power, but also by the desire to bring the way of life of all other people in line with their own moral values.

For example, the persecution of homosexuals is widely recognized as an authoritarian behavior and has nothing to do with consolidate of authority

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