Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Helsinki just went a full year without a single traffic death

politico.eu

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

81–90 of 141 posts

Re: Helsinki just went a full year without a single traffic death

#81

Post by wileydragonfly »

enaaem wrote: post #70
gnfargbl wrote: post #43

On the other side of the coin, a wide-scale introduction of 20mph speed limits in Wales has been generally unpopular. This is despite a relatively small (but real) reduction in casualty figures that came with the change. https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/c93jvpjwdezo

Amsterdam also reduced many roads from 50 to 30 kmph. Accidents have reduced by 11% and travel time has only increased 1-5%. That is less than one minute on a 20 minute trip. https://openresearch.amsterdam/nl/page/124453/onderzoeksrapp...

A 40% reduction in speed only causes a 5% increase in travel time? Are the majority of car trips spent sitting at stop lights??

Re: Helsinki just went a full year without a single traffic death

#83

Post by seizethecheese »

RandallBrown wrote: post #8

I can't say I'd be excited about 19 mph speed limits enforced by cameras, but I don't doubt it would work. I'd love for my city to just focus on making other forms of transportation more appealing. More bus lanes, more (properly designed) bike lanes, etc.

I’ll point out the obvious that this is entirely based on perspective. An individual whose dominant mode of transportation is not driving would probably disagree.

Re: Helsinki just went a full year without a single traffic death

#84

Post by [deleted] »

SilverElfin wrote: post #68

These data free claims don’t ever honestly talk about how they simply made driving so inefficient and bad on purpose so that the other, slower modes, don’t look as bad. Increasing travel times and inconvenience isn’t a win and safetyism is irrational. If you can’t make fast driving safer you haven’t achieved anything really. And as for vision zero - you’ll never get perfect safety and it isn’t worth the tradeoffs.

[deleted]

Re: Helsinki just went a full year without a single traffic death

#85

Post by rectang »

mooreds wrote: post #16
philip1209 wrote: post #13

Oslo has been doing this for years. I wrote a blog post about my learnings there - "Engineering over enforcement": > Enforcement philosophy is rooted in the idea that behavior can be controlled by threatening punishments. Engineering philosophy believes that infrastructure can be designed to incentivize desired behavior. When Oslo sought to reduce pedestrian deaths, it turned to engineers. > [ . . .] Intersections ar…

AKA "make the right things easy" and "build sensible defaults" rather than "all the responsibility is the individuals".

How depraved, to solve problems without inflicting punishment.

Re: Helsinki just went a full year without a single traffic death

#86

Post by owenversteeg »

This is certainly a good thing, but for all the Americans self-flagellating in the comments, it is mostly because Helsinki is wealthy, tiny (600k people), and doesn’t drive that much - mostly because of its high population density. Compare it to wealthy US states and you’ll see similar numbers: Mass has 4 deaths per billion km, RI/MN/NH have 5, Switzerland/Sweden has 3, Germany has 4, Finland has 5, France has 6. If you compare instead per 100k people, ignoring distance driven, that’s 6 in RI/NY/MA, 2 in Sweden, 3 in Finland, 5 in France - and 3 in NYC.

Re: Helsinki just went a full year without a single traffic death

#87

Post by owenversteeg »

wileydragonfly wrote: post #81
enaaem wrote: post #70

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Amsterdam also reduced many roads from 50 to 30 kmph. Accidents have reduced by 11% and travel time has only increased 1-5%. That is less than one minute on a 20 minute trip. https://openresearch.amsterdam/nl/page/124453/onderzoeksrapp...

A 40% reduction in speed only causes a 5% increase in travel time? Are the majority of car trips spent sitting at stop lights??

I haven’t looked into this specific case, but most of the time the limiting factor is other traffic. You’re not traveling at full speed the whole time. If a lower speed adds 10 minutes to the average trip, but it reduces 9 minutes’ worth of traffic, you’ve only lost net one minute. A lower speed limit will often reduce traffic because the speed-up-slow-down behavior is reduced.

Personally, I have driven around the Netherlands a fair bit and this sort of thing does seem to be roughly true for the median case. It can definitely be annoying when the streets are empty, though. For those journeys you’re obviously losing a fair bit of time.

Re: Helsinki just went a full year without a single traffic death

#88

Post by alamortsubite »

quickthrowman wrote: post #71
kerkeslager wrote: post #49

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> As you said, that doesn’t do anything since the road is designed to go 35-45 MPH, that is how fast people will go, with the exception of inflexible rule followers that drive 25 MPH and cause dangerous speed differentials. If speediots followed the rules, there wouldn't be a speed differential. You're blaming the rule followers, when in fact it is the people with the patience of a toddler causing the speed different…

> If speediots followed the rules, there wouldn't be a speed differential. But, they don’t. So there is a speed differential. That’s reality, you aren’t going to change that unless you start executing people that speed, and that isn’t a realistic solution. Redesigning the road so people instinctively drive slower does actually work. You take a four lane road, and change it to a two-lane road with left turn lanes, con…

I think redesign is the way to go, but there are places that are only separated from the U.S. in terms of education and enforcement, and compliance is excellent there. Really we can do both.

Re: Helsinki just went a full year without a single traffic death

#89

Post by owenversteeg »

rhet0rica wrote: post #63

I am reminded of a certain Mitchell and Webb skit that suggests the absence of deaths by drowning in a county indicates perhaps too much public funding has gone into preventing them: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fqYyxvM85zU

Of course, in that sketch, David is right!

Re: Helsinki just went a full year without a single traffic death

#90

Post by maest »

RandallBrown wrote: post #25
maest wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why do you need to go faster in a city center?

You probably don't need to go faster in the city center, but you need to get to the city center somehow.

The limit is active in city centre and residential areas only.
Post reply on HN