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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

#641

Post by cyberax »

woodruffw wrote: post #619
cyberax wrote: post #351

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I mean, I don't hide my despair at large cities. They're destroying the fabric of the Western civilization by acting as black holes for population. > You've also glossed over the more painful statistic: for every lifetime-equivalent lost on mass transit inefficiencies, there are hundreds lost to gridlock in NYC. Here's the thing. A well-designed human-oriented city like Houston has FASTER commutes than ANY similar-si…

This framing that commute time matters more than anything else about a city seems facially incorrect. And once again, it glosses over the actual reality here: people living in dense cities want the benefits of dense living, and there’s no tractable way to maintain that while designing a city primarily for car traffic.

> people living in dense cities want the benefits of dense living

No, they don't. The majority of people in the US (more than 80-85%) want to live in individual homes in suburbs.

Yet people _have_ to live in dense cities because that's where the jobs are.

Re: Helsinki records zero traffic deaths for full year

#642

Post by locallost »

vander_elst wrote: post #625
locallost wrote: post #595

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I agree on cars, but pensions don't come from taxes.

Where do German pensions come from?

From the pension system which is separate from taxation. De jure the current pensioners paid into the system for decades and now get paid back. De facto they get funded by contributions of the currently employed, but they don't swallow up any tax money or hold anyone hostage because if the current system was scrapped there would not be more tax money available for other things (e.g. public transport). The money is collected by a dedicated agency and does not flow through the government.

The current system is hated by people who've been farmongered into thinking there won't be any pensions when it's their turn (this tactic has been around for at least 50 years and hasn't happened yet). And also successfully FOMOed into thinking they are missing out on huge gainz if they would invest the money otherwise. Even though probably true, I quite like the current system of solidarity. And anyway when you go the private insurance route, the way it's setup currently, you are giving away a huge percentage of your earnings to the insurance. They justify this by saying your gainz are only taxed at 50% of their actual value, but since one of the biggest problems of the world today is an overgrown financial strength (thus influence) of large corporations, caveat emptor.

Re: Helsinki records zero traffic deaths for full year

#643

Post by pragmatick »

vander_elst wrote: post #625
locallost wrote: post #595

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I agree on cars, but pensions don't come from taxes.

Where do German pensions come from?

They're not strictly taxes but they kinda are. They're mandatory and paid by workers into a fund but are linked to your future pensions. Like taxes they're automatically deducted from your salary and legally required but earmarked as to be used in the future.

Which has worked well for quite some time but I don't believe I'll every see any of the money I'm currently paying into the system.

Re: Helsinki records zero traffic deaths for full year

#644

Post by taxpension »

locallost wrote: post #595
jijijijij wrote: post #500

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Voter demographics, car lobbyism and/or corruption. Eg. in Germany we’re held hostage by pensioners, who have cars as part of their identity and their pensions swallowing major parts of the state’s tax income. The car industry would be really unhappy, if the "joy to ride" was diminished by any amount, so politicians sing their song. Traffic won’t be slowed, bike infrastructure won’t be built, shit‘s not gonna get fix…

I agree on cars, but pensions don't come from taxes.

Wrong. Around 25% of the federal budget are grants for the pensions, tendency rising. Currently around 120 Billion €.

Quick source (German): https://www.bundestag.de/presse/hib/kurzmeldungen-1015554

Re: Helsinki records zero traffic deaths for full year

#645

Post by BonitaPersona »

locallost wrote: post #642
vander_elst wrote: post #625

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Where do German pensions come from?

From the pension system which is separate from taxation. De jure the current pensioners paid into the system for decades and now get paid back. De facto they get funded by contributions of the currently employed, but they don't swallow up any tax money or hold anyone hostage because if the current system was scrapped there would not be more tax money available for other things (e.g. public transport). The money is co…

That's just a different way of saying "taxes".

> because if the current system was scrapped there would not be more tax money available for other things

But I would retain more of my money.

Re: Helsinki records zero traffic deaths for full year

#646

Post by cyberax »

Earw0rm wrote: post #384
cyberax wrote: post #351

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I mean, I don't hide my despair at large cities. They're destroying the fabric of the Western civilization by acting as black holes for population. > You've also glossed over the more painful statistic: for every lifetime-equivalent lost on mass transit inefficiencies, there are hundreds lost to gridlock in NYC. Here's the thing. A well-designed human-oriented city like Houston has FASTER commutes than ANY similar-si…

You do know that cities are for things besides going from your suburban family home unit to your workplace and back again?

Which "things"?

Pretty much the only thing is the availability of bars and night clubs. And people past the age of 20-25 are typically not that interested in them.

Anything else: museums, operas, theaters, etc. Take up an insignificant amount of time in the real life. For example, most NYC citizens go to museums exactly 0 times a year.

Re: Helsinki records zero traffic deaths for full year

#647

Post by Dylan16807 »

Mawr wrote: post #491
graemep wrote: post #455

Earlier quoted context omitted.

My problem with the 20mph speed limits in the UK is that they seem to be imposed fairly randomly. There are many cases where wide roads with good visibility and few pedestrians crossing have 20mph limits. In one egregious case I experienced recently near identical stretches of the same road (it was a main road, I think an A road, passing through a built up area) switched between 20 and 30 mph limits. If anything it c…

> There are many cases where wide roads with good visibility and few pedestrians crossing have 20mph limits. > My road has a 20mph limit. On the bit I live on it makes no difference - narrower, parked cars etc. means you drive very slow anyway. Make up your mind ;)

There are many cases, and the bit where they live is not one, but a nearby bit is one.

If you're making a joke I don't get it. Can you explain it?

Re: Helsinki records zero traffic deaths for full year

#648

Post by nedt »

Saline9515 wrote: post #207
aDyslecticCrow wrote: post #98

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Most scooter and bike deaths are from being ran over by a car going too fast for the zone. If you take that into the equation of the car (instead of the scooter or bike); then you probably only have heart attacks from warm weather left as a mortality cause for the bike. So no, even per mile driven, cars kill people and bikes pretty much don't. And you should take the buss or train everywhere if you follow that logic…

This is not exactly true. First, many (most?) cyclists do not respect basic road safety rules, such as signaling when you turn, or respecting red lights. Let's not talk about safety behavior, such wearing a helmet or repressing the urge to listen music while riding a bike (I know, crazy, right?). In France, each dataset shows consistently that accidents are very often caused by cyclists. 35% of the deadly accidents i…

> repressing the urge to listen music

Have you seen how many car drivers can't resist to listen to music? They even drive with closed windows. It's even worse like having headphones on, because they don't hear people shouting before they hit them plus a car is faster and heavier. Let's start there for general safety.

Re: Helsinki records zero traffic deaths for full year

#649

Post by Dylan16807 »

pbhjpbhj wrote: post #458
IshKebab wrote: post #418

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The results are basically universally in favour of speed enforcement reducing motor vehicle collisions, reducing injury and cost. Yeah this argument comes up a lot in the UK from people advocating 20mph speed limits everywhere. It's a super dumb argument though. Obviously increasing speed is never going to decrease danger. But if "slower is safer" is the only argument for 20mph then the logical conclusion is 0mph.…

20-to-30 causes a step change in pedestrian outcomes, so no, the logical conclusion isn't 0mph. Also the average speed on 30mph roads before the changeover was around 20mph. It improves traffic flow and reduces pollution too. My only objection is that it's been applied in a somewhat blind way. Long sections of road with no houses and no reported accidents should probably be 30, or even 40mph.

https://ars.els-cdn.com/content/image/1-s2.0-S00014575193010...

I don't really see a step change between 32kph and 48kph.

Re: Helsinki records zero traffic deaths for full year

#650

Post by Dylan16807 »

Xylakant wrote: post #456
bluescrn wrote: post #448

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Instead, there's a push to reduce limits ever closer to zero. 30mph was close to the sweet spot and had been for decades. Or it would have been with a reasonable level of enforcement. But as the ideological and/or climate-driven war on cars ramped up there's been a big push to reduce ever-more areas to 20mph, which is just too slow, especially when deployed widely/indiscriminately as it has been in Wales. (Used very…

If you look at outcomes, 50km/h (30mph) is much less safe than 30km/h (20mph). If you look at the physics, that’s not surprising - stopping distances increase super linear. At the point where a 30km/h car would have come to a stop, a 50km/h car still impacts with 30km/h. On the other hand, average speeds in populated areas usually are way lower than 30km/h, so lowering the top speed to 30km has negligible effect on t…

> At the point where a 30km/h car would have come to a stop, a 50km/h car still impacts with 30km/h.

At that point it's barely superlinear. That means instead of dropping by 30kph it dropped 20kph.

Personally I'd focus more on how even a linear increase in stopping distance is a problem when pedestrians are around.

> On the other hand, average speeds in populated areas usually are way lower than 30km/h, so lowering the top speed to 30km has negligible effect on travel times.

Negligible speed impact also means negligible safety impact.

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