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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

#311

Post by wyre »

knome wrote: post #151
userbinator wrote: post #138

Earlier quoted context omitted.

[flagged]

Looking both ways is undone if drivers are speeding, not bothering to stop at stop signs and being generally unpredictable and dangerous. Blaming pedestrians for getting run over by speeders that are too impatient to drive at safe speeds in residential areas is a ludicrous opinion to take.

I’d go a step further and say blaming pedestrians for getting ran over when a driver can’t pay attention to avoid them is a ludicrous opinion. If anyone disagrees I ask what traffic rule is more important than a human life?

Re: Helsinki records zero traffic deaths for full year

#312

Post by petre »

levocardia wrote: post #187
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.

I think you also have to enforce it. Helsinki also has many automatic speeding cameras. I doubt just putting up a 20 mph speed limit sign would make a big difference without more enforcement.

Speed sensors that turn the traffic light red for 10 seconds are also quite effective without making the place dystopian with CCTVs and fines. I've seen it in Portugal. At the other end is Austria, which uses cameras and fines.

Re: Helsinki records zero traffic deaths for full year

#313

Post by bkettle »

senorrib wrote: post #238
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…

Interesting how you provided a counter example for the “Scandinavian genious” hypothesis and all comments are simply deflecting that and restating unrelated stats.

Are you referring to the Jersey City mention when you say counterexample? It’s excellent and absolutely worth celebrating that a US city was able to achieve this for a year, but just like Helsinki’s car-use stats, it was also no fluke: not only is Jersey City in the most transit-friendly metro area in the country (NYC), but they’ve also had a huge focus on trying to achieve vision zero and (unlike many other cities who claim to also be trying to achieve vision zero) have been aggressively implementing changes to street design that improve safety and encourage non-car modes of transport, often by slowing down cars [1, 2].

And unfortunately, Jersey City had deaths on their city roads again in 2023 and 2024 [3]. We need to be doing everything we can to study places that are doing things well, because we have a long way to go.

1. https://apnews.com/article/hoboken-zero-traffic-deaths-dayli... 2. https://youtu.be/gwu1Cf8G9u8?si=2WWsj5EvTs8CTU8T 3. https://cdnsm5-hosted.civiclive.com/UserFiles/Servers/Server...

Re: Helsinki records zero traffic deaths for full year

#314

Post by Sharlin »

throwaway9832 wrote: post #278
sophia01 wrote: post #220

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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]

Tell that to all the (usually Southern) Finns who seem to think that you’re supposed to drive at or above the speed limit and at too short following distances even in terrible conditions… with predictable consequences.

Re: Helsinki records zero traffic deaths for full year

#315

Post by Sharlin »

throwaway9832 wrote: post #279
pavlov wrote: post #227

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

I can definitely see why you’re using a throwaway account.

Re: Helsinki records zero traffic deaths for full year

#316

Post by petre »

userbinator wrote: post #265
jdiff wrote: post #212

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

New Hampshire is a state with no seat belt laws, yet it's near the bottom of traffic fatality rates in the US: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_U.S._states_by_road_de... In the EU, Germany infamously has roads with no speed limits, but its traffic fatality rate isn't high either.

The statistic is almost funny to looking at, seeing SC at the top of the list with 40% more fatalities as the next state.

Germany only has no speed limits on some Autobahns. But you mostly end up in a Stau or Baustelle anyway, so it's not that exciting.

Re: Helsinki records zero traffic deaths for full year

#317

Post by Taek »

hattmall wrote: post #305
tlogan wrote: post #234

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Essentially, this was the cheapest solution for our “limousine liberals” to address the problem of racial and economic segregation in San Francisco’s public schools. The idea was simple: since schools in areas like Hunter’s Point struggle, while those in neighborhoods like the Sunset perform well, the district decided to send students from Hunter’s Point to Sunset schools, and vice versa in order to “balance” outcome…

It insane to me that anyone, let alone enough people to actually make it happen, would think that was a good policy. It's bussing, but without the busses.

There's a striking lack of accountability in politics. You don't really need evidence that a policy is going to accomplish it's stated goals, you just need the monkey brain narrative to resonate with voters (and the other elements of the political apparatus)

Re: Helsinki records zero traffic deaths for full year

#318

Post by Sharlin »

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…

There used to be dozens of traffic deaths per year in Helsinki back in the 60s. When there were fewer people and much fewer cars. Most of the dead were pedestrians (as opposed to outside urban zones where motorists mostly tend to kill themselves and any unfortunate passengers). Do NOT dare to downplay this achievement. It is the result of decades of work and changing attitudes of what is acceptable.

Re: Helsinki records zero traffic deaths for full year

#319

Post by Sharlin »

astura wrote: post #37
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.

For dumb Americans like me - that 18.641 miles/hr.

For dumb Americans like you who haven’t heard of significant figures, it’s 20 mi/hr. Mayybe 18 mi/h but that’s stretching it.

Re: Helsinki records zero traffic deaths for full year

#320

Post by Taek »

nerder92 wrote: post #246

I’m very curious to known how and if that is impacting transplants of organs. I read somewhere that this was an argument against full-self driving cars becoming too safe.

That's horrible. That's basically saying "let's make sure a ton of people are dying early so that some percentage of them can be used to save lives"

Nobody should ever, ever be in favor of putting people in harms way to increase the availability of organs. At that point you might as well just advocate for a harvest lottery based on how many miles people travel by car.

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