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

Re: Helsinki records zero traffic deaths for full year

#431

Post by j1elo » Sun, Aug 03, 2025, 9:31 AM UTC

OtherShrezzing wrote: post #430

j1elo wrote: post #427

I wanted to read opinions about the cost in time that public transport takes, but it hasn't been commented much. Time is precious (albeit not more than a life! that I agree for sure), and you cannot save it for later, so the problem I have with public transport is the enormous loss of time it is for everyone -- unless the planning is almost flawless. So first we had distances effectively "shortened" with the rise of…

Feels like performing this assessment on a Sunday morning is weighting it massively in favour of the car. Busses run a reduced service in most cities, and traffic is far lighter on a weekend than during the week. What do those times look like on a Wednesday evening during the commute home?

I agree. But for high amount of trips done in a single day, I'd have to use my weekends for sharing examples, as on weekdays the planning is much different due to work. I also obviously know that traffic is dense at certain times, so it's not that roads are always a walk on the park, but for me it's more a matter of knowing the routines and schedules of the city, and using my private transport in the appropriate times is immensely beneficial for the things I usually want to do in a day.

On a Wednesday, too many people try to go in a single direction in the morning, and in the opposite direction in the evening, going to/from work, so depending on where one lives, it's clearly better to use the Subway.

Although with later crisis and inflation and cost reduction, the public transport has been a bit in a downfall with less frequencies, and I've started to notice that the service is worsening; some mornings the trains are coming fully packed of sweaty people, so the experience must be pushing some people to use their cars and join the masses, for sure...

Re: Helsinki records zero traffic deaths for full year

#432

Post by andai » Sun, Aug 03, 2025, 9:32 AM UTC

kqr wrote: post #380

This is one of the things I find difficult about travelling abroad, particularly with children. I'm used to incredibly high safety standards, and when I'm in traffic in many other places in the world it feels like going back a few decades. Genuine question: we have a lot of research on how not to die in traffic (lower speeds around pedestrians, bicyclists stopped ahead of cars in intersections, children in backward f…

>feels like going back a few decades

In what sense?

I feel like things were a lot nicer back then.

Re: Helsinki records zero traffic deaths for full year

#433

Post by Croak » Sun, Aug 03, 2025, 9:36 AM UTC

lionkor wrote: post #411

kqr wrote: post #380

This is one of the things I find difficult about travelling abroad, particularly with children. I'm used to incredibly high safety standards, and when I'm in traffic in many other places in the world it feels like going back a few decades. Genuine question: we have a lot of research on how not to die in traffic (lower speeds around pedestrians, bicyclists stopped ahead of cars in intersections, children in backward f…

What more action could be taken on it?

For example make roads smaller in width. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v6LIYQRglnM

Re: Helsinki records zero traffic deaths for full year

#434

Post by macguillicuddy » Sun, Aug 03, 2025, 9:37 AM UTC

throwaway9832 wrote: post #426

wafflemaker wrote: post #414

Earlier quoted context omitted.

30 km\h limit in densely populated and heavily used by pedestrians first\last 2-5 minutes of your travel does what? Extends your travel time by 1 minute? At the same time making it nearly impossible to kill a kid, cat, dog or human in these places. Same goes with the right of way in these places. You're in a car, you're getting where you're going much faster anyway, so you let pedestrians go first. On pedestrian cros…

You, just like the grandparent, confuse egregious 0% tolerance speed enforcement with speed limits. Speed limits dictates stopping distance and is a key factor in collision avoidance. No one is asking to abolish speed limits. The problem is when passenger cars that require a fraction of stopping distance of a truck at given speed limit are fined for going 3-4 km over limit. Essentially, fined for driving at a speed w…

I don't see anything in the parent comments referencing or advocating for 0% tolerance speed enforcement. In the UK speed limits are typically enforced with a 10% grace factor.

Re: Helsinki records zero traffic deaths for full year

#435

Post by Sharlin » Sun, Aug 03, 2025, 9:40 AM UTC

throwaway9832 wrote: post #417

Sharlin wrote: post #314

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

[flagged]

I responded to the "People drive more carefully on frozen roads." part. Which was not qualified with any particular geographical context. The point is that insofar as people drive more carefully in poor conditions in absolute terms, they still drive less carefully relative to the actual difficulty of said conditions.

Re: Helsinki records zero traffic deaths for full year

#436

Post by hdgvhicv » Sun, Aug 03, 2025, 9:47 AM UTC

rwyinuse wrote: post #406

exe34 wrote: post #397

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's almost as if a balance could be achieved, both by reducing the number of cars and increasing the number of trains/busses.

Yep. Something worth considering is also building long-term parking spaces to the outskirts of cities, accessible with public transport. I know lots of city-dwellers who pretty much never use a car for intra-city transport, but need to own one anyway to reach other important places that are beyond reach of public transport. In case of Finland summer cottages are one such case. They're extremely common, and located in…

Surely car hire would make more sense for that type of usage

Re: Helsinki records zero traffic deaths for full year

#437

Post by arrrg » Sun, Aug 03, 2025, 9:51 AM UTC

yard2010 wrote: post #375

panick21_ wrote: post #275

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> not about urban planning genius or Scandinavian magic Fewer cars IS THE MAGIC and fewer cars IS GREAT URBAN planning.

Yes. In the future there will be no cars and no deaths related to them. We just live in the 1800' of our time.

This is a nonsensical generalization.

This is the observation: we massively overshoot in terms of the role (space, infrastructure) we assign to cars, especially in densely populated areas.

If we can create viable alternatives to driving we can make these places much, much more enjoyable. Quieter, nicer to be around, more human scale, more convenient.

That’s all. Nowhere in there is any claim that cars aren’t immensely useful. In less densely populated people. For people with disabilities. Etc.

Why can’t we have the nice things? And yeah, the nice things do include walkable cities like we had them in 19th century. Sometimes and in some places to a very limited extent the past with some modern conveniences (like trams, modern bicycles) was better.

Re: Helsinki records zero traffic deaths for full year

#438

Post by hdgvhicv » Sun, Aug 03, 2025, 9:52 AM UTC

threatofrain wrote: post #301

Teever wrote: post #281

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You seem to be suggesting that frozen roads paradoxically make for safer driving? Is that a fair characterization of your comment?

And narrow lanes make drivers more cautious.

People not used to it. On my school run some will do 20-60 depending on where along the road and how narrow and what the sight lines are. Others will just do 20-30 for the whole 10 miles.

At a couple of locations there’s morning room but lots of room to overtake (as long as nothing comes the other way), the road is nearly wide enough to have a line down the middle. Most drivers are fine but some of the 20-30 lot will swerve all over the road to try to block overtaking.

These aren’t super narrow, you can get a tractor or hgv down the whole road, and even at some passing places get one past another.

Re: Helsinki records zero traffic deaths for full year

#439

Post by graemep » Sun, Aug 03, 2025, 9:53 AM UTC

globular-toast wrote: post #374

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.

That's because in the UK people just don't walk, except in certain places. You wouldn't get this crane incident happening in London, for example. But in other places people just won't walk there. One way to reduce deaths is just get everyone into cars.

Really? People walk everywhere in the UK I have lived in - London, Manchester, and small towns. Edge of town currently, there are regularly crowds of kids walking to school going past, people going to the convenience store or cafe nearby, people walking dogs, people walking to get the bus......

If buses were more frequent people would take them more, and use their cars less.

People can be very reliant on cars really rural areas but that is a small proportion of the population.

Re: Helsinki records zero traffic deaths for full year

#440

Post by franga2000 » Sun, Aug 03, 2025, 9:53 AM UTC

throwaway9832 wrote: post #429

franga2000 wrote: post #422

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You were replying to a comment saying "studies have shown lower speed limits reduce accidents" with something along the lines of "but who cares if I go 10 over the limit, trucks have more mass and are more dangerous at the same speed". I can't even see your original comment since it was flagged, presumably for being total nonsense. This is not one vs the other, multiple things can be true. Trucks are individually mor…

I reply because "studies have show that claims of studies have show are often false". There is absolutely zero chance any respectable study would support that focusing on maintaining exactly 110 km in a 110km is safer than allowing a 10% buffer (going 10km over) so you can focus on the road and spend more of your attention on spatial awareness than staring at the odometer. Second, it is not about "who cares", it is a…

Nobody claimed any study found that zero percent speed tolerance is beneficial. They said speed limits in general. You're arguing against something nobody ever said.

And no, it's not strictly "if a truck can safely do X then a car can do X+Y. It's not just about physics. There are more cars than trucks, so speed limits matter more for cars. A truck getting into a crash is worse, but less likely. Trucks also already have lower limits in many places, so this isn't even relevant in most places.

Here, truck speed limits: https://dhl-freight-connections.com/en/business/truck-speed-...