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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

#681

Post by bluescrn »

formerly_proven wrote: post #620
throwaway9832 wrote: post #426

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

You go 30 km/h. A kid runs on the street. You manage to stop just in front of it. You go 40 km/h. The same kid runs on the same street. You brake the exact same way. You hit the kid with over 30 km/h. You just killed a kid.

Kids don't run out into the street chasing stray footballs anymore. They're all indoors staring at screens.

Re: Helsinki records zero traffic deaths for full year

#682

Post by lIl-IIIl »

gorbachev wrote: post #76
lIl-IIIl wrote: post #45

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think the argument "I'd rather have a higher risk of dying than do this other unpleasant thing". Which to be fair everyone does all the time (driving habits, eating habits, etc).

No, that's not correct. It's: "I'd rather have other people have higher risk of dying than me having to do something I'd kinda of not want to do even though the inconvenience is minimal". Me, me, me, me and me. Fuck the rest.

I agree. I also think it's natural and something we do all the time.

Re: Helsinki records zero traffic deaths for full year

#683

Post by wyre »

userbinator wrote: post #628
wyre wrote: post #311

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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?

If anyone disagrees I ask what traffic rule is more important than a human life? How is that relevant? This is simple physics, the laws of reality which you seem to be desperately trying to avoid to make some sort of ideological point.

What do you mean? Rules, laws, and blame are not simple physics. It is a driver's responsibility to pay attention when driving. I will ask again in a different way: what situation is it correct to blame a non-suicidal pedestrian for their own death when struck by an automobile? Surely it is an ideological point that I believe there is no situation where I think the pedestrian should be at fault for being hit by a car, but if you disagree (it seems like you do) I ask why you believe the rights of the automobile is greater than the cost of a human life.

Re: Helsinki records zero traffic deaths for full year

#684

Post by qkls »

PeterStuer wrote: post #407

Amazing as I have been to Finland many times for work, and (at least some of) the Fins drive like crazy, especially on the back roads through the forests. Imagine being in one of these insane rally car competitions, but it's actually just a Fin driving a minivan.

People know their roads and usually there's very little traffic. We are also used to driving in gravel and snow, so you need to learn to adjust your speed accordingly.

Re: Helsinki records zero traffic deaths for full year

#685

Post by mbs159 »

anon191928 wrote: post #382
kennywinker wrote: post #167

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Several people is an understatement. based on population, if it was the US there’s more than 160 people in Helsinki every year NOT killed. So, thousands of people.

Meanwhile, US is losing 100 a day for traffic related days. It's literally like a war

Considering that it was ~8 US soldiers / day during the Vietnam war, it seems much worse

Re: Helsinki records zero traffic deaths for full year

#686

Post by lillecarl »

PaulRobinson wrote: post #113

I was in Helsinki for work a couple of years ago, walking back to my hotel with some colleagues after a few hours drinking (incredibly expensive, but quite nice), beer. It was around midnight and we happened to come across a very large mobile crane on the pavement blocking our way. As we stepped out (carefully), into the road to go around it, one of my Finnish colleagues started bemoaning that no cones or barriers ha…

I think your colleague is a hero for spending the effort. Because if you allow companies to start taking shortcuts they won't stop until someone dies.

I live in Stockholm and my experience is that we're also securing temporary goarounds well.

I don't know how or why the Nordics became champions of safety, I'm happy others catch up.

Re: Helsinki records zero traffic deaths for full year

#687

Post by mgfist »

dpe82 wrote: post #534
mgfist wrote: post #530

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> When you do that, you get the benefits. It also gets very very expensive (maybe not in this case specifically). For example in NYC buildings often just leave scaffolding up permanently because it's cheaper to do that than to assemble/disassemble between every job they have to do. I think it's not even clear if scaffolding is that much safer as there have been a number of accidents with the scaffoldings themselves c…

My understanding is it's even dumber than that: NYC sensibly requires building owners to repair failing brick facades, but allows them to put up scaffolding indefinitely until they do. It turns out just leaving up the scaffolding and never performing the repair is often cheaper.

Good point

Re: Helsinki records zero traffic deaths for full year

#688

Post by nedt »

Saline9515 wrote: post #671
nedt wrote: post #648

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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.

It's illegal to wear headphones while riding a bike in France. And car drivers don't wear helmet either, yet I don't hear motorcyclists whine that it's unfair that we ask them to wear one for their own safety. Again, you can't refuse to follow basic safety rules, then complain that cyclists die on the road.

Actually car drivers really should wear helmets. They have a similar numbers in traumatic brain injury than cyclist without helmet.

Re: Helsinki records zero traffic deaths for full year

#689

Post by wpm »

rudolftheone wrote: post #651
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.

I'm not an advocate for speeding in the cities, but this example is really bad - it says my trip time will be extended by 66%! For a really short one, it doesn't matter, but when you drive 40 minutes initially, it's really unacceptable for most.

> it says my trip time will be extended by 66%

Yeah 66% is a higher number, so it seems worse if you literally don't think about it at all.

Its 4 minutes. If its that important your car would have lights and sirens on it.

And it isn't a bad example, unless things are quite different in Finland, the vast majority of car trips taken in the US are under 6 miles (~10km). If you're taking a 40 minute trip on crowded, surface streets in a dense city and not going on a motorway, that's your choice, and frankly, quite selfish of you to not expect to go slow. I frankly don't care how long it takes you to get somewhere in a huge car through a city going faster means endangering other people.

Re: Helsinki records zero traffic deaths for full year

#690

Post by jdiff »

Ray20 wrote: post #277
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.

>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.

There are many phrases, sentences, and concepts that don't generalize when you remove the facts at hand.
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