[HN Gopher] Helsinki records zero traffic deaths for full year
___________________________________________________________________
Helsinki records zero traffic deaths for full year
Author : DaveZale
Score : 328 points
Date : 2025-07-30 16:08 UTC (3 days ago)
(HTM) web link (www.helsinkitimes.fi)
(TXT) w3m dump (www.helsinkitimes.fi)
| SilverElfin wrote:
| > More than half of Helsinki's streets now have speed limits of
| 30 km/h. Fifty years ago, the majority were limited to 50 km/h.
|
| So they hurt quality of life by making it more painful to get
| anywhere, taking time away from everyone's lives. You can achieve
| no traffic deaths by slowing everyone to a crawl. That doesn't
| make it useful or good. The goal should be fast travel times and
| easy driving while also still reducing injuries, which newer
| safety technologies in cars will achieve.
|
| > Cooperation between city officials and police has increased,
| with more automated speed enforcement
|
| Mass surveillance under the ever present and weak excuse of
| "safety".
| moralestapia wrote:
| 50 km/h to 30 km/h on a city commute doesn't make a substantial
| difference.
|
| If you're willing to risk people dying just to get to your
| preferred McDonald's three minutes earlier, then the problem is
| you.
| DaveZale wrote:
| I wonder if the "5 minute city" approach would also help.
| Just zone the cities so that getting that burger doesn't even
| involve driving at all, just a brisk walk?
| masklinn wrote:
| Of course it would, but mention that and America loses its
| mind.
| kennywinker wrote:
| Good for the environment. Good for your health (more
| walking). Good for traffic safety (less fatalities). Good
| for the health care system. Good for your mental health and
| feeling of connectedness to your community. Good for the
| economy (more local businesses and less large box
| monopolies means more employment).
|
| And on the cons side... hurts oil execs, national and
| international retailers, and people who define freedom as
| having to pay $5 to exxon to get groceries.
| calmbonsai wrote:
| I can't see how a 20 km/h difference can't not make a
| difference averaged over so many commuter-miles, but I'm not
| a city planner or traffic engineer.
| Detrytus wrote:
| 30km/h is actually above the average travel speed you
| typically achieve in a big city, if you take traffic jams
| into account.
| moralestapia wrote:
| Exactly my point.
| SoftTalker wrote:
| Yes, take Lake Shore Drive in Chicago. 4 or 5 lanes in
| each direction, 30mph speed limit, and average speed is
| often about 5-10mph.
| jerlam wrote:
| The average commute is not entirely within the streets with
| the 30 km/h speed limit. City planners usually try to route
| car traffic away from residential areas and places with
| large numbers of pedestrians, through arterials, freeways,
| and the like, which will have a higher speed limit.
| Muromec wrote:
| Most of Amsterdam is 30 km, including through roads. But
| it's Amsterdam through roads, so it's mostly two lines
| one way, a dedicated tram track in between, trees that
| separate the road from a bike path and all that. Actual
| in-district roads where unsupervised 8 year olds are
| cycling to school and back are 15 km/h.
| bluecalm wrote:
| Because it's not an average speed but max speed. Higher max
| speed in traffic doesn't make an average speed higher
| because it makes the traffic less smooth.
|
| For example in Switzerland on some highways during rush
| hour the speed limit goes down to 80km/h. They analyzed it
| and it turns out it's an optimal speed limit for
| throughput.
| wpm wrote:
| 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.
| calmbonsai wrote:
| > 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.
|
| This is a wonderful explanation.
|
| Though I've lived in Europe (Dusseldorf and London), my
| default sense of urban density is still American so it
| was hard to fathom such a low potential average speed. In
| London, I didn't bother with a car.
| McAlpine5892 wrote:
| Within a city it really doesn't matter because it averages
| out.
|
| I'm an avid cyclist in a US city. There's a pretty large
| radius around me in which driving is <= 5 minutes quicker,
| not counting time to park. Plus cycling often leaves me
| directly by my destination. I can't imagine how much more
| convenient it would be in a dense European city.
|
| Anyways, what the hell is everyone in such a hurry for?
| Leave five minutes earlier. Cars are absolutely magical.
| Drivers sitting on mobile couches while expending minimal
| effort? Magical. So, ya know, adding a few minutes should
| really be no big deal. Which I doubt it does.
|
| Big, open highways are different. Or at least I'd imagine
| them to be.
| AnthonyMouse wrote:
| > 50 km/h to 30 km/h on a city commute doesn't make a
| substantial difference.
|
| This seems like a weird argument. If your commute is an hour
| at 50 km/h then it's an hour and 40 minutes at 30 km/h, every
| day, each way. That seems like... quite a lot?
| gorbachev wrote:
| The speed limit is not 30km/h for the entire trip.
| Insanity wrote:
| Which city is an hour long drive at 50km/h?
|
| It's city centre driving that the article talks about.
| grosun wrote:
| You can drive through London for an hour in mostly 20mph
| (~30km/h) zones. Thing is, you're unlikely to be
| averaging anything even like 20. Even when the limit used
| to be 30 you weren't either. My old car averaged 16mph, &
| that included trips out of town at motorway speeds.
|
| When the 20 limits were first introduced, lots of people
| would speed & overtake, but then you'd catch them up at
| the next traffic light & the one after etc.
|
| I know London's quite an extreme case, but all a 20 limit
| means in a lot of stop/start urban areas is that you
| travel to the next stop at a speed which is less
| hazardous should you hit something/someone, with far more
| time to react to all the unpredictable things which
| happen in busy urban areas, thus decreasing the chances
| of hitting anything in the first place.
|
| Yeah, it's mildly boring, but driving in cities pretty
| much always is. Just put on some music or a podcast and
| take it easy.
| numpad0 wrote:
| See, the real problem is that people cover too much
| distances daily. 50km is more than Luxembourg is wide where
| it's narrowest. They probably don't commute internationally
| every day there.
| decimalenough wrote:
| Actually a lot of people do, because it's cheaper to live
| and shop on the other side of the border.
| Muromec wrote:
| I think people allocate themselves an hour or what their
| comfortable time is to commute and travel whatever
| distance they can cover in that time. If something is too
| far, they either move closer or pass on it. The exact
| mode, distance and speed can all vary, but what's
| budgeted for is time.
| AnthonyMouse wrote:
| > See, the real problem is that people cover too much
| distances daily.
|
| Which is why most of this is really a housing problem. If
| you make it too difficult to add new housing in and
| around cities, people have to live farther away, and in
| turn show up to the city in cars.
| crote wrote:
| That's not how it works. It's a 30km/h speed limit for _one
| kilometer_ in your local neighbourhood until you hit the
| first through road, then it 'll be 50km/h / 60km/h / 80
| km/h / 120 km/h as usual, and another one kilometer at 30
| km/h at your destination.
|
| In other words, it's 2km at 30km/h plus 48km at 80km/h,
| versus 2km at 50km/h plus 48km at 80km/h. That's a
| difference of 1 minute 36 seconds.
| Muromec wrote:
| Here for example is a map of Amsterdam (click on
| Wegcategorie en snelheid). Inside the block it's 15 km/h,
| on blue roads are 30, red roads are 50. The map doesn't
| color-code the highways, as they don't belong to
| municipality, but they are 100.
| https://maps.amsterdam.nl/30km/
|
| It's like that since last December and was somewhat
| controversial when introduced (expanded), because muh
| freedoms, but not the kind of enduring controversy.
| AnthonyMouse wrote:
| That map seems like the thing _not_ to do. They have one
| section of the city where nearly the whole thing is blue
| and another section where nearly the whole thing is red,
| whereas what you would presumably want is to make every
| other road the alternate speed so that cars can prefer
| the faster roads and pedestrians can prefer the slower
| roads, thereby not just lowering speeds near pedestrians
| but also separating most of the cars from them
| whatsoever, and meanwhile allowing the cars to travel at
| higher speeds on the roads where most of the pedestrians
| aren 't.
| chmod775 wrote:
| This is about driving in a city: you spend most of your
| time accelerating, decelerating, and waiting at
| intersections. 30 vs 50 km/h doesn't make much of a
| difference - travel time does not scale linearly with it.
| AnthonyMouse wrote:
| Whether you can hold the maximum as the average doesn't
| mean there is no proportionality. If you're traveling at
| 50 km/h and then have to come to a stop and accelerate
| again your average speed might be 25, but if the maximum
| speed is 30 then your average speed might be 15.
| elygre wrote:
| The below article is in Norwegian, but has _many_ references at
| the end. Apparently people are overwhelmingly happy, so it
| seems inappropriate to talk about <<hurting quality of life>>.
|
| https://www.tiltak.no/d-flytte-eller-regulere-trafikk/d2-reg...
| ozim wrote:
| It doesn't say anything about hurting quality of life of self
| centered assholes like the top poster - but for me that would
| be another win.
| wolfhumble wrote:
| HN Guidelines: > Be kind. Don't be snarky. Converse
| curiously; don't cross-examine. Edit out swipes.
| voxl wrote:
| Your argument is really "I'd rather people die then drive
| through your city slower."????
| lIl-IIIl wrote:
| 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).
| gorbachev wrote:
| 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.
| dataflow wrote:
| You could ban cars entirely. Why wouldn't you? Would you
| rather people die than drive cars at all?
|
| I'm not agreeing or disagreeing with the parent here; I'm
| just saying your rebuttal is a strawman.
| voxl wrote:
| Since we're pretending to know logical fallacies, your
| deflecting with a slippery slope. Lowering the speed limit
| by 20 mph is not an extreme change, and it if demonstrates
| to improve car safety then yes blood should be on your
| hands for not wanting to drive 20 mph slower.
|
| Alternatively, driving is sometimes necessary to deliver
| goods and travel. But the funny thing is, is that I would
| GLADLY ban cars in all cities and heavily invest in high
| speed rail. Cars would still be needed in this world, but
| again it's the relative change.
|
| So no, it's not a strawman. If anything it was an ad hom.
| AnthonyMouse wrote:
| "Slippery slope is a logical fallacy" is a logical
| fallacy. "Doing the proposed thing makes a bad thing
| easier or more likely" is a valid concern.
| voxl wrote:
| Slippery Slope is a logical fallacy. This is an
| undeniable fact. There is no syllogistic, propositional,
| predicate, or type theoretic argument you can make that
| uses a slippery slope to derive a theorem.
|
| Of course, we are not doing proper logic, which is why I
| balk at bringing up fallacies anyway, it's bad form and
| idiotic. Nevertheless, the argument that we shouldn't try
| to improve safety on the roads because that would lead us
| to the conclusion that we need to ban driving altogether
| is so incredibly pathetic that you should feel
| embarrassed for defending it.
| AnthonyMouse wrote:
| A logical fallacy is a form of argument where the
| conclusion doesn't follow even if the premises are
| satisfied.
|
| The premises of the slippery slope argument are that a)
| doing X makes Y more likely, and b) Y is bad. The
| conclusion to be drawn is that doing X has a negative
| consequence, namely making the bad thing more likely,
| which actually follows whenever the premises are
| satisfied.
| perching_aix wrote:
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Slippery_slope
|
| > This type of argument is sometimes used as a form of
| fear mongering in which the probable consequences of a
| given action are exaggerated in an attempt to scare the
| audience. When the initial step is not demonstrably
| likely to result in the claimed effects, this is called
| the slippery slope fallacy.
|
| > This is a type of informal fallacy, and is a subset of
| the continuum fallacy, in that it ignores the possibility
| of middle ground and assumes a discrete transition from
| category A to category B. Other idioms for the slippery
| slope fallacy are the thin edge of the wedge, domino
| fallacy.
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Informal_fallacy
|
| > Informal fallacies are a type of incorrect argument in
| natural language. The source of the error is not
| necessarily due to the form of the argument, as is the
| case for formal fallacies, but is due to its content and
| context. Fallacies, despite being incorrect, usually
| appear to be correct and thereby can seduce people into
| accepting and using them.
|
| For the record, I don't _really_ think slippery slope was
| invoked there (nor do I think ad hominem was), but I do
| think it 's an actual fallacy. I actually even disagree
| with them claiming it wasn't a strawman, too - they
| dramatized and reframed the original point.
| AnthonyMouse wrote:
| Calling it an "informal fallacy" would still make it
| _not_ a logical fallacy. The slippery slope argument is
| _correct_ whenever the premises are satisfied.
|
| It's possible in some cases that the conclusion is _weak_
| , e.g. if Y is a negative outcome but not a very
| significant one, but that doesn't make it a fallacy and
| in particular doesn't justify dismissing arguments of
| that form _as_ a fallacy when X does make Y significantly
| more likely and Y is a significant concern.
| perching_aix wrote:
| > It's possible in some cases that the conclusion is weak
|
| Not only weak, but completely void, which is why it is an
| informal fallacy, and thus a fallacy, if I understand it
| right. You're correct that it's not a logical fallacy
| specifically, and I do see in retrospect that that was
| the point of contention (in literal terms anyways). But
| I'm really not sure that it really was in literal terms
| you guys were talking, really didn't seem like it.
| AnthonyMouse wrote:
| > Not only weak, but completely void, which is why it is
| an informal fallacy, and thus a fallacy
|
| In those cases the premises wouldn't even be satisfied.
| It's like saying that "all men are mortal, Socrates is a
| man, therefore Socrates is mortal" is a fallacy because
| you're disputing that Socrates is a man rather than a
| fictional character in Plato's writings. That doesn't
| make the argument a fallacy, it makes the premise in
| dispute and therefore the argument potentially
| inapplicable, which is not the same thing.
|
| In particular, it requires you to dispute the premise
| rather than the form of the argument.
| perching_aix wrote:
| You'll need to take this up with the entire field of
| philosophy, because in literature informal fallacies are
| absolutely an existing and distinct class of fallacies,
| with the slippery slope argument being cited among them:
| https://iep.utm.edu/fallacy/#H2
|
| It's not just a Wikipedia thing or me wordsmithing it
| into existence. As far as I'm concerned though, arguments
| the premises of which are not reasonable to think they
| apply / are complete, or are not meaningfully possible to
| evaluate, _are_ decidedly fallacious - even if they 're
| logically sound.
| AnthonyMouse wrote:
| Here's a quote from your link:
|
| > Arguments of this form may or may not be fallacious
| depending on the probabilities involved in each step.
|
| In other words, it depends on the premises being correct.
| But _all_ arguments depend on their premises being
| correct.
|
| The fact that something is widely parroted doesn't mean
| it's correct -- that's just this one:
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Argumentum_ad_populum
| perching_aix wrote:
| > The fact that something is widely parroted doesn't mean
| it's correct
|
| Argumentum ad populum is itself an informal fallacy, as
| described on both of our links. What I said wasn't an
| argumentum ad populum anyways: we're discussing
| definitions, and definitions do not have truth values.
|
| > But all arguments depend on their premises being
| correct
|
| But not all incorrect premises are formulated in a
| reasonable manner. There are degenerate premises that
| have telltale signs of being misguided. These would be
| what make informal fallacies. In a way, you could think
| of them as being incorrect about the premises of what
| counts as sound logic.
| perching_aix wrote:
| Does this not make a double strawman? What's the point of
| that?
|
| For example, they might be of the opinion that danger
| doesn't increase linearly with speed, but more
| aggressively. This would result in a scenario where they
| could argue for lower speed limits without having to argue
| for complete car elimination. Case in point, this piece of
| news.
| CalRobert wrote:
| Honestly that would be great.
| SoftTalker wrote:
| Well Helsinki achieved their goal (zero fatalities) without
| banning cars, so that argument doesn't really work. And I
| count myself among those who would not have believed it
| possible.
|
| Of course in general you can avoid potential bad
| consequences of a thing by not doing the thing but that's
| just a tautology.
| dataflow wrote:
| To be clear, what Helsinki achieved is awesome, and I'm
| not suggesting the outcome was obvious. But that is
| completely beside the point being discussed here. I was
| making a rebuttal to a very specific comment and that was
| it. If the point was not obvious with an outright ban as
| an example, pretend it said reduce to 10 km/h or
| something.
| Muromec wrote:
| >You could ban cars entirely. Why wouldn't you? Would you
| rather people die than drive cars at all?
|
| We don't even ban drugs here and cars are more useful than
| drugs. It's all about harm reduction and diminishing
| returns. Also, autoluwe (but not autovrije) districts exist
| and are a selling point when buying/renting a house, so
| your attempt at a strawman is rather amusing.
| dataflow wrote:
| Of _course_ it 's about harm reduction and diminishing
| returns. I have nothing against what Helsinki did. I was
| solely replying to that specific comment. Because it was
| an awful counterargument to an argument that I had
| explicitly noted I was not agreeing with in the first
| place.
| jdboyd wrote:
| Google seems to suggest that the secret to fast travel in
| Helsinki is to take public transit.
| GuB-42 wrote:
| > So they hurt quality of life by making it more painful to get
| anywhere
|
| No, they only made it more painful to get into the city streets
| by car. And probably not by much, as it only matters if you are
| not stuck in traffic or waiting at a red light. Helsinki is a
| walkable city with good public transport, cars are not the only
| option.
|
| > Mass surveillance under the ever present and weak excuse of
| "safety"
|
| Speed traps (that's probably what is talked about here) are a
| very targeted from of surveillance, only taking pictures of
| speeding vehicles. And if it results in traffic deaths going
| down to zero, that's not a weak excuse. Still not a fan of
| "automatic speed enforcement" for a variety of reasons, but
| mass surveillance is not one of them.
| hgomersall wrote:
| Given i'm trying to advocate for speed cameras local to me,
| I'd be interested in your variety of reasons if you're
| willing to share?
| AnthonyMouse wrote:
| > Speed traps (that's probably what is talked about here) are
| a very targeted from of surveillance, only taking pictures of
| speeding vehicles.
|
| Speed cameras in practice will use ALPR, and by the time the
| hardware capable of doing ALPR is installed, they'll then
| have the incentive to record every passing vehicle in a
| database whether it was speeding or not, and whether or not
| they're "allowed" to do that when the camera is initially
| installed.
|
| It's like banning end-to-end encryption while promising not
| to do mass surveillance. Just wait a minute and you know
| what's coming next.
| hgomersall wrote:
| There's actually an incentive to not store more data than
| is necessary, like the jenoptik average speed cameras,
| which only store info on speeding vehicles:
| https://www.jenoptik.com/products/road-safety/average-
| speed-...
| AnthonyMouse wrote:
| The incentive you're referring to is a law. The problem
| is that a primary entity you don't want tracking everyone
| is the government, and governments (like other entities)
| are notoriously ineffective at enforcing rules against
| themselves. The public also has no reliable means to
| establish that they're not doing it as they claim, and
| even if they're not doing it _today_ , you're still
| rolling out a huge network of cameras waiting to have the
| switch flipped overnight.
| crote wrote:
| So get the government to purchase speed traps with _photo_
| cameras instead of _video_ cameras, triggered by a speed
| detection loop in the road itself. You know, just like
| speed traps have been working for _decades_?
|
| Heck, just leave the ALPR part out of the cameras
| altogether in order to save costs: have them upload the
| images to an ALPR service running somewhere in the cloud.
| You're probably already going to need the uploading part
| anyways in order to provide evidence, so why even bother
| with local ALPR?
| AnthonyMouse wrote:
| > So get the government to purchase speed traps with
| _photo_ cameras instead of _video_ cameras, triggered by
| a speed detection loop in the road itself.
|
| Photo cameras would still be doing ALPR. Changing from
| "take a photo of cars that are speeding" to "take a photo
| of every car and only send tickets to the ones that are
| speeding" is a trivial software change that can be done
| retroactively at any point even after the cameras are
| installed.
|
| > Heck, just leave the ALPR part out of the cameras
| altogether in order to save costs: have them upload the
| images to an ALPR service running somewhere in the cloud.
| You're probably already going to need the uploading part
| anyways in order to provide evidence, so why even bother
| with local ALPR?
|
| How does this address the concern that they're going to
| use ALPR for location tracking? They would just do the
| same thing with the cloud service.
| CalRobert wrote:
| Are you a car?
| Muromec wrote:
| >Speed cameras in practice will use ALPR
|
| s/will/are/
| lbrito wrote:
| Have you considered there are alternative modes of
| transportation other than personal vehicles? Some of them are
| even - gasp - public transportation, and quite efficient at
| what you want (fast travel).
| ent wrote:
| As someone who lives and regularly drives in Helsinki, I feel
| that most kilometers I drive are on roads that allow 80km/h.
| The 30km/h limits are mostly in residential areas, close to
| schools and the city center (where traffic is the limiting
| factor and it's better to take the public transit).
|
| So while 30km/h might be the limit for most of the roads, you
| mostly run into those only in the beginnings and ends of trips.
| ath3nd wrote:
| > So they hurt quality of life by making it more painful to get
| anywhere, taking time away from everyone's lives
|
| The average American mind can't comprehend European public
| transport and not sitting in a traffic jam and smog for 1 hr to
| go to their workplace. Some of us walk or cycle for 15 min on
| our commutes, and some of us even ride bicycles with our
| children to school. It takes me as much time to reach my
| workplace with a bike as with a car if you take parking, and
| one of those things makes me fitter and is for free.
|
| I guess that's one of the reasons people in the US live shorter
| and sadder than us Europeans. Being stuck in traffic sure makes
| people grumpy.
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_life_expe...
|
| https://worldpopulationreview.com/country-rankings/happiest-...
| Muromec wrote:
| Take better from both worlds -- 1 hour bike commute and save
| on healthcare costs too.
| Saline9515 wrote:
| Very entitled comment. The food worker who has to stand up
| for the whole day to make your matcha frappuccino could
| enjoy some rest on the way home.
| Saline9515 wrote:
| It really depends on the city. In Paris, I saw crackheads
| shooting next to me, people defecating in the train, licking
| the handle bars (true!), and so on, so yeah...Paris subway is
| great in theory, in practice, at 8AM, it's war, but smellier.
|
| And the air pollution in the French subway is much worse than
| what you have outside. https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/
| article/pii/S143846392...
|
| I suspect that most of the bike drivers are affluent service
| workers who can't be arsed to share the public transport with
| the plebs.
| Nurbek-F wrote:
| Someone has to put a chart near it, describing the decline in
| driving in the city. When you're limited to 30kmh, you might as
| well get a scooter...
| k_g_b_ wrote:
| https://www.tomtom.com/traffic-index/ranking/ 30 km/h is equal
| to 20 min/10km, 50 km/h is 12 min/10km.
|
| So Helsinki city center is at 21km/h travel speeds, metro area
| at 31km/h. A speed limit of 30 km/h doesn't really affect these
| travel times much.
|
| I can't find 2023 data to compare, however by other data on the
| net these are very common average speeds for any city in Europe
| even those with plenty of 50 km/h speed limits.
|
| If more people take up public transport, bikes or scooters in
| fear of an average travel speed reduction of 1-2 km/h - that is
| a total win for everyone involved including drivers.
| 1718627440 wrote:
| Average speed means you have both above and below speeds?
| When you lower the speed limit, the average will also go
| down?
|
| But yes, in a city cycle time of traffic lights has a larger
| effect than max speed.
| mikkom wrote:
| I live in helsinki and nowhere it is 20 kmh that I know of.
| Might be some random streets in center. And 30km/h streets
| are smaller living streets that driving that speed comes
| almost automatically.
|
| Major ringways and main roads are 80 kmh btw
|
| I have driven in many many countries - Helsinki does not feel
| slower than any place I have driven, faster in fact because
| there rarely are traffic jams
| jonasdegendt wrote:
| I reckon he means that the average speed when driving
| through the city centre is 21 km/h, given that you're
| stopping at lights and stuff.
| mike-the-mikado wrote:
| The Tom Tom data is interesting, but time taken for 10 km is
| not really an appropriate metric. In a more densely populated
| city, journeys are likely to be shorter.
| thomascountz wrote:
| A 30 km/h limit and decline in driving means zero people have
| to die. If enforcing scooters meant zero people have to die,
| I'm not sure what the objection is, truly.
| mattlondon wrote:
| Scooters kill people too (often the drivers themselves but
| not always).
|
| The problem with escooters is that basically _any_ accident
| is "bad" since you have no protection while you toodle along
| at 15.5mph. Not just slamming into the ground, but into
| street furniture, trees, building, bikes - you name it. A
| helmet (which no one wears) is not going to help you if you
| wrap your abdomen around a solid metal bench at 15.5mph. The
| real world has a lot of hard sticky-out bits (and perhaps
| ironically cars _don 't_ due to crash testing rules, so I
| guess crash I to a stationary car is your best bet)
|
| It's a bloodbath in London.
| CalRobert wrote:
| Not sure I'd say blood bath but here's some data
|
| https://www.gov.uk/government/statistics/reported-road-
| casua...
| shkkmo wrote:
| > The problem with escooters is that basically any accident
| is "bad"
|
| Factually false. Out of well over 1000 annual collosions in
| GB in 2023 there were a a handful of deaths but they were
| all the e-scooter riders.
|
| > The real world has a lot of hard sticky-out bits (and
| perhaps ironically cars don't due to crash testing rules,
|
| The most dangerous parts of the streets for scooters are
| the cars, not the other "sticky-out" bits that don't move
| and are pretty easy to avoid if you aren't drunk or on your
| phone or not looking forward. Less than a quarter of
| e-scooter accidents involved no other vehicle and I'd be
| willing to bet those tended to be less serious.
|
| E-scooters are great because they aren't as dangerous to
| other people. People get to make their own choices about
| risk tolerance, speed and gear all while presenting less
| hazard to the public when they make bad choices.
|
| > you have no protection
|
| The protection you get in a car comes from the added mass
| that also makes you so much more dangerous to other road
| users.
| hsdvw wrote:
| Maybe enforce pedestrian crossings instead. Zero deaths
| without annoying anybody.
| 9dev wrote:
| They had pedestrian crossings already, and that was not the
| deciding factor. It was the speed limit that kept people
| alive.
|
| If people like you getting annoyed by having to drive
| slower is the price for just one person not dying in
| traffic, that's already a win in my book.
| perching_aix wrote:
| Do you think people rightfully crossing crosswalks never
| get hit, or do you include the cars in the equation too?
| What about every other type traffic accident that could be
| prevented from being fatal by just lowering the speed?
| nickserv wrote:
| Yes that's probably the point. Cars kill many more people than
| scooters.
| kahirsch wrote:
| Not per mile driven.
| aDyslecticCrow wrote:
| 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 to the extreme.
| Saline9515 wrote:
| 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 involving another road user were caused by
| cyclists, and if you consider serious accidents, in 2/3rd
| of the cases, no cars were involved.
|
| Many deadly accidents are also caused by...a stroke (22%
| of the deaths), especially for older cyclists. This
| contradicts your point, as 1/3rd of the "solo deaths" are
| not caused by strokes. Indeed, 35% of the cyclists dying
| on the road do not involve another road user.
|
| Hence, when you consider the total amount of cyclists
| killed on the road, less than half are in accidents where
| the car is responsible. In the case of suicide-by-
| redlight, is the car really to blame honestly? [0]
|
| Hence, when accounting for minutes spend on the road,
| bikes are by far the most dangerous (excluding
| motorbikes, which at this point is a public program for
| organ donation).[1]
|
| [0] https://www.cerema.fr/system/files/documents/2024/05/
| 3._2024...
|
| [1] https://www.quechoisir.org/actualite-velo-
| infographie-plus-d...
| techterrier wrote:
| bzzzzt WRONG taking the limit from ~30mph to ~20mph does not
| significantly impact overal journey times.
| connicpu wrote:
| Great, scooters are much less likely to kill pedestrians during
| collisions. I'm glad more people who didn't actually need 2 ton
| metal boxes are downsizing to something more practical.
| ARandomerDude wrote:
| Careful what you wish for. Make it hard for people to have
| families and society will collapse.
| peebeebee wrote:
| Yes. There were no families before carriages... /s
|
| A carless society/city is way more family-oriented.
| ccakes wrote:
| The Nordics aren't struggling at all in this area, they
| also have incredibly generous parental leave and subsidised
| child care systems.
| celeritascelery wrote:
| All Nordic countries are well below replacement rates.
| They are definitely struggling.
| perching_aix wrote:
| So is the States with its car culture. Silly point to
| spiral around I'd say.
| beardicus wrote:
| yes, famously no society has ever managed to have children
| without widespread private car ownership.
| ath3nd wrote:
| > Make it hard for people to have families and society will
| collapse
|
| I used to live in Amsterdam which has a great public
| transport, great cycling paths, and limits of 30km/h.
| People are going cycling to school, on dates, and picnic
| with their families. Associating having a 3 ton gas guzzler
| as a prerequisite of having a family and a roadblock of
| "society" is only a question of poor imagination.
|
| https://www.yahoo.com/lifestyle/six-health-lessons-learn-
| net...
|
| There are multiple reasons Americans are obese as hell and
| living shorter than us Europeans, and driving everywhere is
| one of it.
| SoftTalker wrote:
| Some areas such as Amsterdam though are just naturally
| more ammenable to walking, cycling, and transit. Cycling
| in 90+ (F) temperatures with high humidity (very common
| in the summer in the US midwest or south), or even just
| walking very far or waiting very long for a bus is pretty
| miserable. I'd arrive at my destination literally
| dripping with sweat and really unpresentable.
| Muromec wrote:
| Somehow Singapore being 1 degree from the Equator manages
| to have a bus network, a metro and practically caps the
| amount of cars on the roads.
|
| Also, you seems to underestimate how bad the weather in
| Amsterdam is. Cycling on a bridge through rain against
| the wind at 5 degrees (C) isn't very fun either.
|
| When I lived in a more hotter climate, 30ish (C) was
| a-okay for some people to cycle to work and then get a
| shower at work. It's all about infrastructure really ---
| be it showers, speed limits or bike paths.
| jamiek88 wrote:
| This has to be the most American comment ever.
|
| Society will collapse no less due to minor inconveniences!!
| CalRobert wrote:
| Ah yes, because mowing down kids is somehow pro family?
|
| I live car free in a Dutch suburb with two small kids and
| do so specifically so our kids could have a better life
| than crappy American suburbia.
| t-3 wrote:
| I somewhat doubt that scooters are a significant portion of
| traffic, given that the Finnish warm season is very short.
| Maybe Finns drive more carefully, drive less, and take
| alternative transport more often to avoid the ice and snow of
| half the year?
| Saline9515 wrote:
| Helsinki public transport is stellar, so there are few
| benefits from driving.
| aDyslecticCrow wrote:
| Most of your commute through a city is turning, accelerating
| and waiting in traffic. 30km/h or 50km/h makes every little
| difference in your commute times.
|
| When getting on a larger road with less twists and turns, the
| speed is higher and the gains of the speed is higher; but the
| danger is also lower. Any road that may stop to wait for a turn
| or red light, could probably be capped to 30km/h without much
| cost to your precious commute time.
| YZF wrote:
| I have a few km getting out of my city to the highway as part
| of my commute and then quite a few kms in the city I'm
| commuting to. This is a pretty typical North American
| experience (I'm in the Greater Vancouver area). There is no
| realistic transit option, my 30 minute car drive would be 2
| hours on transit each way.
|
| So let's say 10km (might be a bit more) in city traffic. 12
| minutes of my commute each way [EDIT: impacted by speed
| limit, not counting lights, corners etc.] Total 24 minutes.
| That would turn into 20 minutes each way, total 40 minutes.
| Huge difference.
|
| Most of this "city" driving is in streets that are plenty
| wide (sometimes 3 lanes each way with a separation between
| directions) and have minimal to no pedestrian traffic. On the
| smaller streets you're probably not doing 50 anyways even if
| that's the limit since it will feel too fast.
|
| Vancouver has been looking at reducing speed in the city to
| 30km/hr. It's hard to say if it will reduce traffic deaths
| (maybe?) but it's going to have some pretty negative economic
| effects IMO. Some of the smaller streets are 30 anyways.
| There are probably smarter solutions but city and road
| planners don't seem to be able to find them.
|
| I'm willing to bet Helsinki is denser and has much better
| transit.
| Earw0rm wrote:
| And move six people in the same amount of space as one before,
| and for 1/10th as much energy use?
|
| This is a bad thing how?
| Tiktaalik wrote:
| Don't let anyone tell you that better things aren't possible
| nickserv wrote:
| Great news, good on them. Not only does this make their lives
| better and safer, but it can help many other cities. Sometimes
| just knowing that something is possible is enough for people to
| achieve it.
| vincnetas wrote:
| for a start when someone does it, others might start realising
| that it's even possible and start asking for it.
| iambateman wrote:
| As Hank Green said..."no one tells you when you don't die."
|
| There's several people walking around Helsinki right now who
| would not be had they not made safety improvements...we just
| don't know who they are.
| kennywinker wrote:
| 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.
| max_ wrote:
| "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.
| astura wrote:
| For dumb Americans like me - that 18.641 miles/hr.
| Dig1t wrote:
| That is infuriatingly slow, driving 25mph in my hometown
| kills me.
|
| Probably would be fine if I was in a self driving car and
| could just play on my phone going that speed, but actually
| driving that slow would suck.
| para_parolu wrote:
| Clearly it's opposite of killing
| monster_truck wrote:
| Something tells me you play on your phone while driving
| anyways
| sapiogram wrote:
| Making drivers miserable is part of the intention, they
| want people to drive less because it's annoying as hell for
| everyone else.
| jmkni wrote:
| That's fine if the public transport is up to scratch, as
| well as the cycling infrastructure.
|
| Where I live it's woefully inadequate making driving the
| only viable option for most journeys.
|
| This has a knock on effect of making cycling down right
| dangerous in places, because of all the cars + relatively
| high speed limits, like I wouldn't want to cycle from my
| house to work, it would be at best unpleasant, and I
| would be taking my life in my hands on some of the roads.
| CalRobert wrote:
| Streets with low speeds are themselves decent bike
| infrastructure.
| jmkni wrote:
| If people actually stick to those speed limits.
| CalRobert wrote:
| Yeah, needs to be in the design instead of a dumb sign
| userbinator wrote:
| And those with that intention are authoritarians that
| need to be kept out of government.
| Muromec wrote:
| But Finland is a democracy. People clearly voted for it.
| perching_aix wrote:
| I don't claim to have the perfect definition for
| authoritarian behavior, but I _would_ say that intending
| to consolidate authority is pretty key to it. Which
| making drivers ' life miserable isn't really connected
| to, or at least I really don't see it.
|
| Otherwise, the typical government is a central authority
| made up of people, carrying out lawmaking, adjudication,
| and enforcement activities [0], and so basically all of
| them could be characterized this way, with sufficient bad
| faith. So I'm not sure that's a very meaningful claim.
|
| It definitely could be a misuse of power regardless
| though, but there's no evidence that I see in your
| comment that would suggest it was the officials in
| question misusing their powers rather than aligning with
| community sentiment or interests.
|
| [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Separation_of_powers
| jdiff wrote:
| 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.
| 9dev wrote:
| Not as painful as getting run over, apparently.
| userbinator wrote:
| Whatever happened to "look both ways before crossing"?
| Stupidity kills, and maybe Darwinism needs to do its job
| a bit more these days.
| knome wrote:
| 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.
| SoftTalker wrote:
| I agree, but if the streets are set up accordingly, it's
| about as fast as you'd normally want to drive anyway.
|
| For the standard US road with 12-foot-wide lanes and
| generally straight-ahead routes, 20mph does feel very slow.
| I've driven on some roads though where narrower lanes,
| winding paths, and other "traffic calming" features
| contribute to a sense that 20mph is a reasonable speed.
| squigz wrote:
| Sorry to say but if we can reduce traffic accidents by a
| significant margin this way, people being annoyed at having
| to drive slower is a fine price to pay.
| BolexNOLA wrote:
| It may feel like you aren't going very fast, but at the end
| of the day you're probably only arriving at your location a
| couple of minutes later than you normally would and when
| applied at scale this could potentially save thousands if
| not tens of thousands of lives a year depending on how
| widely this is adopted. Hell maybe hundreds of thousands,
| but I don't know the numbers well enough to make a claim
| that high, seems steep at first glance.
|
| Surely we can agree the pros outweigh the cons here? I can
| wake up 5-10 minutes earlier for safer roads.
| echelon_musk wrote:
| > _you're probably only arriving at your location a
| couple of minutes later than you normally would_
|
| That depends on the total journey distance.
| crote wrote:
| No, it doesn't. Those low speed limits are only used for
| smaller residential streets. It only impacts the part of
| your journey from your home to the edge of your
| neighbourhood, and the same at your destination.
| Regardless of journey distance, the vast majority of your
| trip will be spend driving on roads intended for through
| traffic - which will of course still have a higher speed
| limit.
|
| Percentage-wise it is only going to meaningfully impact
| your travel time if you stay within your own
| neighbourhood. At which point the only logical response
| can be: _why are you even taking the car?_
| everforward wrote:
| Fwiw, this is how my American neighborhood is set up and
| it's completely tolerable. Nobody is more than 5 or 6
| blocks from a "through traffic road".
|
| It's also got stop signs on virtually every intersection,
| so speeding is basically gone. A lot of people ignore
| speed limits, but I've never met anyone that blanket
| ignores stop signs on 4 way intersections. You're not
| getting much faster than 20mph in a single city block
| without making a very obvious amount of noise (at least
| in an ICE).
| graevy wrote:
| i think a large part of this that often goes unstated is
| the suburban sprawl that causes people to need to drive
| longer distances near pedestrians to begin with -- do you
| live in an area with wide streets, many single-family
| homes, and parking lots? when i've lived in city
| neighborhoods with dense housing i've only had to drive
| far/fast to leave, and when i've lived in the middle of
| nowhere i wasn't at risk of flattening pedestrians
| jeffbee wrote:
| If we were a real country, we would actively hunt down
| people who express this sentiment and seize their vehicles
| until after they satisfy a psychological exam.
| Muromec wrote:
| And then if they fail the exam, appoint to the public
| office.
| jeffbee wrote:
| Thereby increasing the number of officials without access
| to cars? A diabolical plan!
| Muromec wrote:
| Everybody gets a personal chauffeur and the problem is
| solved. Check and mate, dirty commie urbanistas.
| tommoor wrote:
| Drivers are actually calm in Helsinki, not constantly honking
| and slowly rolling into you in the pedestrian crossing either.
| dyauspitr wrote:
| I rarely hear anyone in the US honking outside of maybe the
| downtown of really big cities like NYC.
| diggan wrote:
| The world differs greatly when it comes to socially
| acceptable (or even legal) honking. In Sweden barely anyone
| honks unless to avoid serious accidents. In Spain, there is
| some honking, even when you just mildly inconvenience
| someone. In Peru, honking is a way of life/driving, and to
| communicate with other drivers, even when you just pass
| someone normally.
| quirino wrote:
| Honking is common across Brazil but not in the capital
| Brasilia. Signs at some entrances of city read "Dear
| visitors, in Brasilia we avoid honking".
| DFHippie wrote:
| When I was in Thailand, people honked at pedestrians to
| let them know they were passing them. Not angry honks,
| just toots. Different culture. It left a lot of confused
| tourists.
| aljgz wrote:
| What part of the parent comments implied comparison to US?
| BolexNOLA wrote:
| They're just relaying their experience in the US.
| ses1984 wrote:
| How many miles do you drive per day and where are those
| miles? I hear plenty of honking in the suburbs and I only
| drive 5 miles per day.
| jfengel wrote:
| NYC has really cracked down on excessive honking. It's
| nowhere near as bad as it used to be.
|
| Shouting and middle fingers are still common.
| skippyboxedhero wrote:
| Other places have introduced the same limit and haven't seen
| the same results.
|
| People who are likely to have crashes are likely to be able
| who ignore the limit. One of the biggest problems in modern
| policy-making is the introduction of wide-ranging, global
| policies to tackle a local problem (one place that introduced
| this limit was Wales, they introduced this limit impacting
| everyone...but don't do anything about the significant and
| visible increase in the numbers of people driving without a
| licence which is causing more accidents...and, ironically,
| making their speed limit changes look worse than they
| probably are).
| crote wrote:
| > People who are likely to have crashes are likely to be
| able who ignore the limit.
|
| ... which is why you have to do actual road design. You
| can't just put up a speed sign and hope people will
| magically abide by it. Roads need to be _designed_ for the
| speed you want people to drive. When done properly the vast
| majority of drivers will follow the speed limit without
| ever having to look at the signs, because it 'll be the
| speed they will feel _comfortable_ driving.
| cluckindan wrote:
| Proper design of road networks also makes traffic flow
| better. Many congested areas would actually benefit from
| removing some roads altogether.
| perching_aix wrote:
| I believe you're referring to Braess' Paradox, right?
| This was a very surprising effect for me to learn about,
| just recently Veritasium covered it in their video on a
| mechanism that becomes "shorter when you pull on it":
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-QTkPfq7w1A
|
| [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Braess%27_paradox
| cluckindan wrote:
| Yes, I saw the same video! Having played Cities:
| Skylines, it was not that much of a surprise, more of a
| neat formal explanation.
| skippyboxedhero wrote:
| It isn't road design, it is behavioural/cultural. People
| will drive recklessly when they do not care, for whatever
| reason, about the people they may injure by doing so.
| That is it. If you look at comparisons between countries,
| it is clear that means are different.
| jfengel wrote:
| There are people who don't care at all, but most people
| will drive around the speed that the road encourages.
| That includes things like how straight the road is, what
| kinds of interactions, the presence of sidewalks, trees,
| and many other clues.
|
| Neighborhoods can be designed to send signals about the
| appropriate speed, without signs or rumble strips or
| speed bumps. Some people will ignore these, just as
| they'll ignore signs, but most drivers will do what they
| expect for that kind of road.
| DFHippie wrote:
| > You can't just put up a speed sign and hope people will
| magically abide by it.
|
| Off topic, but one of the more maddening things I see
| here in the US is signs which say "End thus-and-such
| speed limit." I don't want to know what the speed limit
| was. I want to know what it is!
| mtrovo wrote:
| Your example is definitely not a good example of global
| policies for a local problem. In Wales it was up to the
| local councils to identify areas that under proper safe
| circumstances would keep their different limits, defaulting
| to being reduced to 20mph if nothing was done. That's a
| very sensible way of handling it.
|
| I have no idea about your stats on driving without a
| licence being more of a problem than speeding, accidents on
| roads that got the speed reduced to 20mph or 30mph
| decreased by 19% YoY, that's a big impact for mostly no
| additional policing needed.
| skippyboxedhero wrote:
| ...you are just explaining that it was a global policy
| for a local problem. I don't know what to tell you. The
| global policy is 20mph.
|
| It sounds like a big impact if you don't know anything
| about statistics because, obviously, you would need to
| know some measure of variance to work out whether a 19%
| YoY decrease was significant (and I don't believe the
| measure that reduced 19% was accidents either). This
| hasn't been reported deliberatel but that is a single
| year and that is within error. You, obviously, do need
| more policing...I am not sure why you assume that no
| policing is required.
|
| People driving without a licence/insurance are more of a
| problem than someone going 30mph...obviously. Iirc, their
| rate for being involved in accidents is 5x higher. If you
| are caught doing either of these things though, the
| consequences are low. Competent driver going 30mph
| though? Terrible (there is also a reason why this is the
| case, unlicenced/uninsured driving is very prevalent in
| certain areas of the UK).
| arp242 wrote:
| "First 20mph year sees 100 fewer killed or badly hurt"
| https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/c78w1891z03o
|
| So no, what you're saying is bollocks. And no one ever
| claimed that speed limits are the _only_ solution.
| skippyboxedhero wrote:
| If you actually read what the statisticians said about
| this limit, the difference is within error.
| Unfortunately, the reporting on this subject is extremely
| bad and most people are motivated enough not to care.
| orwin wrote:
| So, for the records, when epidemiologist say "speed kills", the
| fact that high speed are more dangerous for your health is not
| the point.
|
| The main cause of mortal accidents is loss of control, way over
| attention deficit (depend on the country, in mine its 82% but
| we have an unhealthy amount of driving under influence, which
| cause a lot of accident classified under attention deficit.
| I've seen a figure of 95% in the middle east). The majority of
| the "loss of control" cases are caused by speed. That's it.
| Speed make you loose control of your car.
|
| You hit the break at the right moment, but you go to fast and
| bam, dead. You or sometimes the pedestrian you saw 50 meters
| ago. But your break distance almost doubled because you were
| speeding, and now you're a killer.
|
| Or your wife put to much pression in your tires, and you have a
| bit of rain on the road, which would be OK on this turn at the
| indicated speed, but you're late, and speeding. Now your eldest
| daughter got a whiplash so strong they still feel it 20 years
| after, your second daughter spent 8 month in the coma, and your
| son luckily only broke his arm. You still missed your plane
| btw.
| tlogan wrote:
| The percentage of Asian drivers is less than 1%. Maybe that's a
| bigger factor than the speed limit?
|
| Apologies for the joke but I want to emphasize that there are
| so many variables at play here.
|
| My theory is that it is because they have better public
| transportation and way less cars on the road.
| t_mahmood wrote:
| As an Asian driver, you're not wrong. Almost everyone drives
| like they have to save the world in next destinati aaon
| levocardia wrote:
| 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.
| mhb wrote:
| This is no secret. The slower transportation is, the safer it
| is. Those aren't the only parameters though. There is a cost to
| making the speed limit arbitrarily low. Without discussing what
| the cost is, this is a bit of a pointless discussion.
| dilyevsky wrote:
| The real reason is Finnish absolutely draconian fines that
| scale up with income and really really strict enforcement. Make
| fines start with $500 and go to thousands and actually enforce
| them and not what SF is doing and we'll have the same but
| people over here don't like to hear it...
| aidenn0 wrote:
| They lowered the speed limit by 5mph (8 km/h) throughout the
| entire town I live near. As far as I can tell, it just means
| that people now drive 15mph over the speed limit when they
| previously were driving 10mph over.
|
| The last fatality on the major road closest to my house
| involved someone driving over 60mph in a 45 zone.
|
| There was also a near-miss of a pedestrian on the sidewalk when
| a driver going over 100mph lost control of their vehicle. That
| driver still has a license.
|
| I don't think lowering the speed limit to 40 (as they recently
| did) would have prevented that.
| enaaem wrote:
| They did the same thing in Amsterdam. There were a lot
| complaints at the beginning, but the city became much nicer in
| the end. Immediate improvement was the reduction of noise.
| Studies have shown that there was only a 5% increase of travel
| time. For example, that would be 1 minute on a 20 minute trip.
| That is because the largest determinant of average speed are
| the intersections and not the maximum speed limit.
| mzmzmzm wrote:
| At the same time NYC and Toronto, we are removing protected bike
| lanes. In North America the acceptable amount of lives per year
| to sacrifice for a little convenience for drivers is above zero,
| and apparently rising.
| jeffbee wrote:
| This is a great reason to have snap elections instead of
| scheduled elections. Mayor Adams will scorch the earth to get
| the votes of a handful of extremists in his quixotic reelection
| attempt, and will harm lots of people in doing so.
| Alive-in-2025 wrote:
| How does snap elections solve this problem? You'd have less
| information if it happened in the next week, especially about
| less well known candidates. You are suggesting that elections
| coming in a few months leads to tricking people?
| sdenton4 wrote:
| It creates conditions for more direct accountability.
| There's a pretty standard pattern of getting elected, doing
| the more extreme things, and then giving the voters time to
| cool off before the election happens.
| jerlam wrote:
| It also prevents the election losers from lighting
| everything on fire on the way out.
| jdiff wrote:
| The pattern in the US seems to be to leave time bombs
| running that only detonate if you don't get re-elected,
| something that snap elections wouldn't help with.
| zwnow wrote:
| Freedom, f* yeah
| lanfeust6 wrote:
| Helsinki didn't achieve this with bike lanes.
| enaaem wrote:
| In the 70s there were massive protests in the Netherlands
| called "Stop the Child Murder". Note that these protests were
| based on conservatism. People were used to safe streets where
| children could cycle independently to school, go to sports
| clubs and hang out with their friends around the city. Then
| cars came and started killing their children.
|
| At the height of the killings, 420 Children were killed per
| year: that is more than 1 per day. 3200 people were killed per
| year if you include adults. You can imagine that even more were
| wounded and maimed.
|
| Of course people did not accept that the automobile would
| destroy their traditional lifestyle and massive protests took
| place around the country.
| gerdesj wrote:
| I can certainly attest that cycling around the Netherlands
| was a joy during the late 70s and 80s. I lived in West
| Germany on and off, mostly in the north and close to the
| border. A lot of German roads had very decent cycle lanes
| too.
|
| It was a bit of a shock cycling in the UK but to be fair all
| roads were a lot less busy back then. I also don't recall the
| hostility to cyclists back then that exists now.
|
| A bunch of Dutch hydo-engineers probably (there were rather a
| lot of skilled folk over there) assisted Somerset back around
| C17+ to drain and reclaim some pretty large tracts of land in
| the "Levels". Perhaps we need some cycle lane building
| assistance.
| woodruffw wrote:
| I think the bigger scandal in NYC isn't the removal (it was a
| single lane removed as part of a 15+ year back-and-forth beef),
| but the fact that the city isn't even _close_ to meeting its
| legal obligations around constructing new lanes[1].
|
| (That's not to say that the removal isn't shameful and nakedly
| for hizzoner's political gain; I just think it's not the "big"
| thing.)
|
| [1]: https://projects.transalt.org/bikelanes
| cyberax wrote:
| > At the same time NYC and Toronto, we are removing protected
| bike lanes. In North America the acceptable amount of lives per
| year to sacrifice for a little convenience for drivers is above
| zero, and apparently rising.
|
| BTW, what do you think about the 5-10 extra lifetimes that
| people in NYC collectively waste _every_ _day_ in commute
| compared to smaller cities?
|
| A well-designed car-oriented city will have commutes of around
| 20 minutes, compared to 35-minute average commutes in NYC. So
| that's 30 minutes that NYC residents waste every day on
| average. That's one lifetime for about 1.2 million people
| commuting every day.
| PaulRobinson wrote:
| 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
| had been put out to safely shepherd pedestrians around it. I was
| very much "yeah, they're probably only here for a quick job,
| probably didn't have time for that", because I'm a Londoner and,
| well, that's what we do in London.
|
| My colleague is like "No, that's not acceptable", and he
| literally pulls out his phone and calls the police. As we carry
| on on our way, a police car comes up the road and pulls over to
| have a word with the contractors.
|
| They take the basics safely over there in a way I've not seen
| anywhere else. When you do that, you get the benefits.
| Hamuko wrote:
| There actually was an incident last year where a man fell to
| his death at a construction site in Helsinki. I think the man's
| companion said there was a small gap in the fencing at the
| time.
|
| https://yle.fi/a/74-20111683
| seb1204 wrote:
| This is tragic but does not fall under traffic deaths I would
| assume.
| graemep wrote:
| 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.
| rozab wrote:
| I would guess Finnish deaths are inflated by the rural
| rallying culture though, hard to compare
| pavlov wrote:
| 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 car!"
|
| The cousin in question is ten years old. I was absolutely
| furious that they let the boy drive a real car and that my
| little girl was in it with no adult supervision. But my in-
| laws didn't see a problem: "He was only driving on a
| private road -- there's no risk -- everybody does it here
| -- this is the best way to get the boys used to engines and
| driving."
|
| In my opinion this is how you train teenagers to think that
| safety and rules don't matter, and that they're
| invulnerable. But I can't change these people's views, so
| all I can do is try to make sure my daughter doesn't ride
| with her cousins from now on.
| rjsw wrote:
| TBF, that happens in the UK as well.
| sophia01 wrote:
| > 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 vs
| 0.41 in the UK.
|
| https://www.itf-oecd.org/road-safety-dashboard
| tlogan wrote:
| 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 traffic deaths (quick
| search says that Jersey City, New Jersey has zero traffic deaths
| in 2022).
|
| So maybe it's not about urban planning genius or Scandinavian
| magic. Maybe it's just: fewer things that can kill you on the
| road.
|
| I wonder how the numbers will change when majority of cars are
| autonomous.
| rimbo789 wrote:
| Itll for sure get worse once most cars are autonomous and are
| programmed badly
| egypturnash wrote:
| Every time I see a Cybertruck while I'm on my bike I am
| stunned at how badly that thing is designed, it's got a hood
| higher than my head _and_ a front that slopes backwards as it
| goes down, so that anything it hits is just naturally shoved
| under it, this is a machine _built_ for vehicular homicide.
| How the fuck did that get allowed on the road at all.
| levocardia wrote:
| FWIW Cybertruck (and all other teslas) have a forward
| collision warning system that can detect pedestrians and
| automatically brake. Not perfectly of course, but better
| than other cars. Large cars are not the primary driver of
| increased pedestrian deaths in the USA, either.
| derektank wrote:
| >Large cars are not the primary driver of increased
| pedestrian deaths in the USA, either.
|
| What is the primary cause of increased US pedestrian
| deaths?
| globalise83 wrote:
| It's not allowed in Europe, and I very much doubt it ever
| will be.
| hobbescotch wrote:
| Have you been to Finland? It is a very safety conscious
| culture. This isn't just some fluke.
| eCa wrote:
| The question to ask is, why are there less cars?
|
| Public transport. As an example, just the tram network had 57
| million trips in 2019. The metro, 90+ million trips annually.
| The commuter rail network? 70+ million. (Source: wikipedia)
|
| So yes. Urban planning has a hand or two in it.
| silvestrov wrote:
| How people in Helsinki get to work: Car: 23% ;
| PublicTransport: 47% ; Walk: 12% ; Bike: 15%
|
| How pupils in Helsinki get to school: Car: 7% ;
| PublicTransport: 32% ; Walk: 45% ; Bike: 14%
|
| source: https://www.hel.fi/static/liitteet/kaupunkiymparisto/
| julkais...
| tlogan wrote:
| I completely agree. Though implementing it is far easier
| said than done.
|
| Here in San Francisco (and much of California), things are
| incredibly complicated.
|
| Take this example: in SF, there's a policy that prevents
| kids from attending elementary school in their own
| neighborhoods. Instead, they're assigned to schools on the
| opposite side of town. In places that are practically
| inaccessible without a car. And there are no school buses.
|
| Changing that policy has proven nearly impossible. But if
| kids could actually attend local schools, biking or walking
| would be realistic options. That one shift alone could make
| a huge difference in reducing car dependence.
| pantalaimon wrote:
| What kind of policy is that based on? Seems very counter
| intuitive, aren't are supposed to meet your classmates
| after school?
| derektank wrote:
| It was a decision intended to foster racial and
| socioeconomic diversity, adopted in 2020[1]. It will
| likely be reversed in the 2026/2027 school year[2]
|
| [1]
| https://drive.google.com/file/d/1WxAVUXfKCdhSlFa8rYZqTBC-
| Zmz...
|
| [2] https://www.sfusd.edu/schools/enroll/student-
| assignment-poli...
| tlogan wrote:
| 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" outcomes.
|
| But in practice, it backfired. Most families in the
| Sunset opted out: either by enrolling their children in
| private schools or moving out of city. The policy didn't
| create meaningful integration; it just hollowed out
| neighborhood public schools and made traffic worse.
|
| A striking example: St. Ignatius Catholic school located
| on Sunset Boulevard is now undergoing a $200 million
| campus expansion, while SFUSD is closing public schools
| due to declining enrollment.
| TimorousBestie wrote:
| > in SF, there's a policy that prevents kids from
| attending elementary school in their own neighborhoods.
| Instead, they're assigned to schools on the opposite side
| of town. In places that are practically inaccessible
| without a car. And there are no school buses.
|
| Could you explain this policy a little more, or provide
| some references? I see SFUSD does some sort of
| matchmaking algorithm for enrollment, so what happens if
| you select the five (or however many) closest elementary
| schools? I can imagine a couple reasons why they would
| institute such a policy, but I'm having trouble finding
| documentation.
| tlogan wrote:
| Children may not attend their neighborhood school in
| SFUSD because the system prioritizes diversity, equity,
| and access over proximity. They do that to address racial
| and economic segregation but basically it was the
| cheapest way to solve the problem. See Board Policy 5101.
|
| I think in 2027, SFUSD might be transitioning to an
| elementary zone-based assignment system. I'm not anymore
| involved in that but I can tell that is a very very
| politically charged. Very ugly. All they did it make
| website more confusing.
|
| In the end, only 20% of kids ended up going to their
| neighborhood schools. [1]
|
| [1]
| https://www.sfchronicle.com/opinion/openforum/article/sf-
| sch...
| TimorousBestie wrote:
| Okay, I can find this board policy. However, I still
| can't square your account with theirs, see
| https://www.sfusd.edu/schools/enroll/student-assignment-
| poli...
|
| > Students applying for a SFUSD schools submit a
| preferred or ranked list of choices. If there are no
| space limitations, students are assigned to their highest
| ranked choice.
|
| and also:
|
| > Due to space limitations, not all students will be
| assigned to one of their choices. Those students will be
| assigned to a school with available seats closest to the
| student's home.
|
| So it seems like proximity does play a role?
| WillPostForFood wrote:
| The way SFUSD placed kids, after checking whether they
| have siblings, or pre-K attendance, is:
|
| _Test Score Area (CTIP1) Students who live in areas of
| the city with the lowest average test scores._
|
| Which will tend to fill good schools in good areas from
| kids in areas with bad schools. After that they look at
| proximity, but most or all spaces will have been filled.
|
| _Attendance Area Elementary school students who live in
| the attendance area of the elementary school requested_
|
| It effectively means a lot of neighborhood swapping, and
| driving kids to schools.
|
| https://web.archive.org/web/20210204205328/https://www.sf
| usd...
| ronjakoi wrote:
| I'm 40 years old and have lived in the Helsinki metropolitan
| area my whole life. I have a licence, but I have never owned
| a car because I don't need it. I drive maybe twice a year
| when I need to go somewhere I can't reach by public
| transport, I borrow a relative or friend's car for that.
| Muromec wrote:
| That's a no-starter in the land of free, because Helsinki has
| "less diversity" -- of course they don't mind being in a
| public space with _other people_.
|
| No hopefully, dear Leader will solve this problem for America
| and then they could have all the benefits of the
| civilization, once all undesirables are deported.
|
| It's no coincidence that USSR had both GULAGs and public
| transport -- only after letting your inner authoritarian out
| you can have the nice things and US is half the way through.
| senorrib wrote:
| Interesting how you provided a counter example for the
| "Scandinavian genious" hypothesis and all comments are simply
| deflecting that and restating unrelated stats.
| matsemann wrote:
| What kills in my city is mostly trucks. Yes, we need them to get
| goods to stores. But we don't need the bigass trucks with zero
| vision to haul goods inside a city. I look forward to Direct
| Vision Standard being mandatory. Trucks in cities should be built
| more like city buses. The hut low and with windows all around.
| nerder92 wrote:
| 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.
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