[HN Gopher] Helsinki records zero traffic deaths for full year
___________________________________________________________________
Helsinki records zero traffic deaths for full year
Author : DaveZale
Score : 1049 points
Date : 2025-07-30 16:08 UTC (4 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.
| devilbunny wrote:
| > Going 50km/h between red lights doesn't actually make
| your trip faster
|
| Except when it does, due to horrible traffic engineering
| practices.
|
| There were a pair of one-way streets in the downtown of
| my city. Both attempted to have "green wave" setups for
| the lights. One worked pretty well, the other was okay,
| but whatever.
|
| The problem was that the road itself was signed at 30
| mph, but the _lights_ were timed at 40 mph. It literally
| encouraged people to speed if it were not too busy (e.g.,
| after business hours).
| AnimalMuppet wrote:
| I saw the reverse once. Some town in the (US) Midwest
| when I was a kid. Downtown had signs that said "The
| traffic lights are synced for 25 MPH". It wasn't a speed
| limit, just a statement. When you figured out that they
| were telling the truth, you started driving 25.
| devilbunny wrote:
| That would be sensible.
|
| If I'm being very charitable, I would say you might
| naively set this up so that the next light's stopped
| traffic clears just before the previous light's traffic
| arrives, and perhaps that's how it worked during the day
| (I was a teen, I didn't go downtown during business hours
| much). After 5, it just encouraged you to punch it to
| make them all in one go.
| 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.
| Earw0rm wrote:
| That's true, but people will willingly sacrifice time for
| a rather small career step up; moving house is hard once
| you have a family in schools and so on; so in a
| conurbation you end up with 1hr+ commutes anyway.
|
| I don't think most are math-minded enough to factor
| commute time and cost into any salary calculation, if
| there's a 10% pay bump they'll take it even if all the
| gains get eaten up travel.
| 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.
| crote wrote:
| Amsterdam is an _old_ city. The "everything is slow"
| part has extremely narrow roads, which were never
| designed for significant amounts of through traffic and
| realistically can _never_ be made safe. Ideally they
| would indeed have a bunch of faster access roads, but
| that 's just not physically possible.
| Muromec wrote:
| The everything is red part is only red for throughroads
| and has different density compared to everytging is blue
| part.
|
| The separating part is already done, so what you see is
| lowering the speed from 50 tp 30 even on the roads where
| the cars were funnelef into.
| lrasinen wrote:
| 2017 Helsinki speed map for reference: https://www.hel.fi
| /hel2/ksv/Aineistot/Liikennesuunnittelu/Au...
|
| (in support of the above thesis)
| 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...
| 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 [0] 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.
|
| In fact, I ran into this the other day here when while
| someone said something potentially true, they were also
| engaging in a No True Scotsman fallacy (also an informal
| fallacy). One of them claimed that "if it's a fallacy,
| it's nonsensical to call it true" - except no, that's not
| the point. The statement can absolutely be true in that
| case, it's the reasoning that didn't make sense in
| context. Context they were happy to deny of course,
| because they were not there to make people's days any
| better.
|
| Similar here: the slippery slope can be true and real,
| it's just fallacious to default to it. Conversely [0], it
| is _absolutely_ possible that people all think the same
| thing, are actually right, and some other thing becomes
| true because of it, just super uncommon, so it is
| fallacious to invert it.
| AnthonyMouse wrote:
| > Argumentum ad populum [0] is itself an informal
| fallacy, as described on both of our links.
|
| Which gets to the difference between one and the other.
|
| "This is correct because everybody says it is" is a
| fallacy because it can be true or false independent of
| whether everybody says it is or not. Even if the premise
| is true, the conclusion can be false, or vice versa.
|
| Whereas if the premises that X likely leads to Y and Y is
| bad are both true, then the conclusion that X likely
| leads to something bad is _not_ independent.
|
| > What I said wasn't an argumentum ad populum anyways:
| we're discussing definitions, and definitions do not have
| truth values.
|
| Categories have definitions. Whether a particular thing
| fits into a particular category can be reasoned about,
| and a particular miscategorization being common doesn't
| make it 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.
|
| The general form of informal fallacies is that they take
| some reasoning which is often true (e.g. if everybody
| believes something then it's more likely to be true than
| false) and then tries to use it under the assumption that
| it's _always_ the case, which is obviously erroneous,
| e.g. the majority of people used to think the sun
| revolved around the earth.
|
| The category error with slippery slope is that the
| probability is part of the argument. If 60% of the things
| people believe are true, that doesn't tell you if "sun
| revolves around the earth" is one of those things, so you
| can't use it to prove that one way or the other.
|
| Whereas arguing that taking on a 60% chance of a bad
| thing happening is bad _isn 't_ a claim that the bad
| thing will definitely happen.
| perching_aix wrote:
| > is a fallacy because it can be true or false
| independent of whether everybody says it is or not
|
| Except of course when there is a dependence between the
| trueness of the statement and how many people are saying
| it. For example, if I bring up that a certain
| taxonomization exists and is established, it is pretty
| crucial for it to be popularly held, otherwise it would
| cease to both exist and be established.
|
| > Whether a particular thing fits into a particular
| category can be reasoned about, and a particular
| miscategorization being common doesn't make it correct.
|
| But you reject the category of informal fallacies being
| fallacies overall, despite them being definitionally
| fallacies, no?
| 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/
| Earw0rm wrote:
| Good.
|
| Freedom to move around the city anonymously does not mean
| freedom to move around the city in a 2000kg, 100kW heavy
| machine anonymously.
|
| Even the US recognises that the right to bear arms doesn't
| extend to an M1A1 Abrams.
| 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.
| lbschenkel wrote:
| Another problem that exists only in the US as they don't
| treat you as a slave and make you stand the whole day
| elsewhere. People have chairs and do use them.
| ferongr wrote:
| Service workers in coffee shops stand all day here in
| enlightened Europe too.
| twixfel wrote:
| Driving a car in the isn't restful in the slightest.
| Saline9515 wrote:
| The parent was talking about public transport. Sitting in
| a bus is restful, you can read a book or watch a movie,
| or just dream away.
| 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.
| ath3nd wrote:
| > 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.
|
| Fairly often they are postal or delivery workers. Are those
| the affluent service workers that we keep hearing about?
| Saline9515 wrote:
| My comment was not about those people, who are minimum-
| wage temp workers and a tiny minority compared to the
| mass of cyclists in Paris.
|
| In the case of Helsinki, they don't have a particularly
| outstanding biking infrastructure, but they have stellar
| public transports. And clean, very clean. I'd choose that
| everyday, which is much more inclusive and far less
| dangerous for everyone. Especially in a aging society.
| andriamanitra wrote:
| > 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.
|
| Like others have pointed out making road speeds faster barely
| makes a dent in travel times. The absolute best way to reduce
| travel times is to build denser cities, which incidentally
| means less parking, narrower roads, and, most importantly,
| fewer cars. In a densely populated area it's impossible to
| match the throughput of even a small bike path with anything
| built for cars. Safety is just a bonus you get for designing
| better, more efficient, more livable cities.
| 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.
| zahlman wrote:
| > When you lower the speed limit, the average will also go
| down?
|
| Yes, but by much less than OP might naively expect.
| 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.
| lettuceconstant wrote:
| I don't know about the situation in your city, but there
| problem really is that a comparatively large portion of
| e-scooter drivers are either idiots or drunk and idiots.
|
| At least here they should follow same traffic rules as
| bikes, but it's very common to see them driving amid
| pedestrians. Of course, no gear present whatsoever. The
| average scooter accident is also more serious than the
| average cycling accident with head injuries being
| particularly common. Even if the typical victim is the
| driver himself, that does not make e-scooters great for
| the city.
|
| We already have city bikes here and it would be
| societally much preferable if people were just using
| those instead.
| shkkmo wrote:
| Yeah, I personally would choose a bike over a scooter.
| However I would much rather have an drunk idiot on a
| scooter than driving a car.
| 7952 wrote:
| That is exactly the danger a pedestrian faces when a car
| drives into them. At least with a scooter the driver takes
| on more of the risk and has more skin in the game.
| 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?
| zahlman wrote:
| It takes almost no effort to find stories like
| https://globalnews.ca/news/10986468/robie-street-halifax-
| ped... .
|
| (For reference, Halifax, Nova Scotia is maybe a quarter of
| the size of Helsinki.)
| 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...
| Mawr wrote:
| > First, many (most?) cyclists do not respect basic road
| safety rules
|
| Wonderful, and the least safety conscious cyclist in the
| world is still largely only a danger to himself.
|
| > 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
|
| So including accidents in which the cyclists themselves
| died then?
|
| > and if you consider serious accidents, in 2/3rd of the
| cases, no cars were involved.
|
| So who was involved? Don't keep us hanging.
|
| > Many deadly accidents are also caused by...a stroke
| (22% of the deaths), especially for older cyclists.
|
| Yeah, cycling accident stats tend to be dominated by the
| >50 y/o age cohorts, painting a very misleading picture.
|
| From your [1] source:
|
| "Age seems to be a significant risk factor: 64% of
| cyclists killed on their bikes were over 55 years old."
|
| > Hence, when accounting for minutes spend on the road,
| bikes are by far the most dangerous
|
| Minutes spend on the road amongst cars? Sure. Not
| surprising to anyone.
|
| From your [1] source:
|
| "Even more surprising, deaths occur most of the time
| under normal conditions: 77% in broad daylight, 69%
| outside any intersection, 87% on dry roads. Figures
| corroborated by recent fatal accidents reported in the
| regional press: they resulted from a rear-end collision,
| when overtaking where the motorist had not respected the
| safety distance. "
| Saline9515 wrote:
| I was answering to the parent who said that cycling
| accidents/deaths were caused by cars. As it happens, in
| the case of death, it's true, even though only for 2/3rds
| of the deaths, so not an overwhelming majority. And
| regarding "serious accidents" which are much more common
| and nonetheless very problematic, it's mostly false as
| most of the cycling accidents don't involve another car.
|
| Besides, a cyclist passing at a red light can hit a
| pedestrian. I know those are the last of your concerns as
| a cyclist, my wife got hit at a crosswalk in Paris by
| one, who didn't respect the red light.
|
| Or, by the way, a car can create an accident while trying
| to avoid the cyclist. Honestly, saying "dangerous cycling
| behavior is only dangerous for us" and "accidents and
| deaths are caused by cars" is quite comical and
| representative of the self-centered mindset of many
| cyclists.
|
| Also, half of the cycling accidents with cars involve a
| professional vehicle/public transportation. But I'm sure
| that in your biking utopia, we'll have tomorrow cargo
| bikes delivering to Costco and and material to public
| works!
| gs17 wrote:
| > Wonderful, and the least safety conscious cyclist in
| the world is still largely only a danger to himself.
|
| Pedestrians are people too, and we're often in danger
| from cyclists who think they have right of way with no
| speed limit on sidewalks (very often on roads with bike
| lanes, for reasons that confuse me), or who think stop
| signs and lights shouldn't apply to them and hit us. I've
| been in situations where if I hadn't been very lucky my
| choice would have been between getting hit by a bike or a
| car. My parents or grandparents would not be so lucky,
| they would simply have to get hit.
|
| And then there's the suicidal behavior, e.g. a cyclist
| who has decided that crossing a 5 lane road should not
| require waiting for a break in traffic, which could
| easily cause the cars to have an accident from trying to
| avoid hitting them.
| Mawr wrote:
| Yes, per mile driven.
| 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.
| throwaway998772 wrote:
| Great, now I'll have the 0.02% chance of surviving a
| collision with a scooter that slaloms on any possible
| walkable terrain, instead of a 0.01% chance of surviving a
| collision with a car that won't hit me because they don't
| drive on sidewalks.
| connicpu wrote:
| Scooters shouldn't feel the need to drive on sidewalks when
| the speed limit is 30km/h
| gs17 wrote:
| They do it for the same reason cyclists do it. They value
| their safety and comfort over the pedestrians'. Riding in
| the road means cars, riding on the sidewalk means people
| who will jump out of your way.
| 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.
| paavope wrote:
| Based on my experience living here in Helsinki for 30 years,
| people drive cars _more_ in the winter rather than less.
| That's because the alternative is usually some combination of
| walking and public transit, and walking is uncomfortable in
| the winter and public transit is a bit less dependable, too.
|
| But altogether people mostly still use public transit,
| there's not a whole lot of driving per capita and the traffic
| is relatively slow and non-chaotic. I think that's the core
| reason for the road safety.
|
| Also, the requirements for getting a driver's license here
| are stricter than it sounds like in other countries, with a
| high emphasis on safety; that probably contributes to the
| non-chaotic traffic
| 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.
| aDyslecticCrow wrote:
| Yes i don't doubt your estimates for Vancouver. European
| cities are built very differently (partially because of
| historical streets being later adapted for motor-vehicles).
| What i consider city driving, 50km/h or above would be
| probably be considered suicidal with the amount of merging,
| turning, and red lights. And the density is higher at that.
|
| Three lanes either way i consider a real motorway. I don't
| think I've seen a much larger road in Sweden or Finland
| myself. These roads would clearly not be capped to 30km/h
| like discussed in this article. (more likely I've seen is
| 80-90km/h near the city with a lot of merging traffic, and
| 100-120 outside).
|
| I think the easiest way to visualize what kind of city it
| is, is to consider that any road with red-light,
| walkway/bikeway by the side, roundabouts, or without side-
| barried or trench to be a "city road" and capped at 30km/h.
| Which is not unreasonable, and unlikely to affect commute
| by much, as you generally navigate to the nearest larger
| road, travel by that, and then merge back into the city.
| (and this is most roads in the city by distance or area)
|
| as a European looking at an american city, they feel like
| playing sim-city but not finding the "small road" option.
| And slapping red-lights, stores, and crossings om roads
| that no human should be near.
| YZF wrote:
| Here is Marine Drive in Vancouver:
| https://maps.app.goo.gl/ThnKn7PmD8sKSnNs5
|
| Speed limit 50km/h ... It has lights and intersections.
| Almost no pedestrians.
|
| Vancouver has many wide multi-lane streets. Some in
| denser areas with more pedestrian traffic some less. It
| has almost no real highways going to the city.
| alexanderchr wrote:
| Agreed that it makes no sense to restrict that kind of
| road to 30km/h, but to be fair most cities that have
| moved to 30km/h would have excluded that road. Even
| Amsterdam left the main throughfares at 50km/h:
| https://www.amsterdam.nl/30-km-u-in-de-stad/
| aDyslecticCrow wrote:
| yes. I feel like European cities makes greater
| distinction between "large road" and "small road". A road
| this wide and open would have barriers, trenches, and
| road-exit lanes rather a red light.
|
| I took a jump around with google maps for an example;
| https://maps.app.goo.gl/1qgPoM35RCjxLR2d9. This is the
| E12 road through Helsinki. It would be considered a major
| road that connects Helsinki to the rest of the country.
| Barriers, trenches, an underpass for pedestrians to cross
| to the other side, overpasses and merge lanes to leave
| the road or turn around. This road is capped to 80km/h
| since its near to the city, but would likely rise to
| 100-120km/h when there are less mergers.
|
| Leaving this "major road" quickly gets you into more
| normal larger city roads like this;
| https://maps.app.goo.gl/dP5FiMAPcXn3xMiH7. Driving 50km/h
| on this kind of road can be suicidal in sections (seems
| like 40km/h is the speed limit on the google maps
| images), and most your time is spent navigating a-lot of
| other cars, red-lights and turns.
|
| 1 more turn, and you're in the 80% of city roads;
| https://maps.app.goo.gl/HELXkV9xjmLyf5Q77. Drive 50 at
| your own peril (that's 2 way road with parked cars, and
| very typical)
|
| When the article discusses "30km/h for city roads", this
| is closer to what you should visualize compared to the
| Vancouver road. The style of road you show would be a
| weird limbo between too large to be safe for pedestrians,
| but still used as a minor road for some reason.
| 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
| bapak wrote:
| Are you suggesting that facts are useful in public debate?
| Everyone has an agenda and they will follow it regardless of
| what you show them.
| NicuCalcea wrote:
| That's why nothing has ever changed in the history of
| humanity, because we're born with an agenda and never change
| it.
| 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.
| anon191928 wrote:
| Meanwhile, US is losing 100 a day for traffic related days.
| It's literally like a war
| mallets wrote:
| And likely 10x that number injured or 3-4x with permanent
| life-altering injuries.
| 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.
| Sharlin wrote:
| For dumb Americans like you who haven't heard of significant
| figures, it's 20 mi/hr. _Mayybe_ 18 mi /h but that's
| stretching it.
| EasyMark wrote:
| using a different units system doesn't make you dumb.
| Otherwise the USA would still be navel gazing instead of star
| gazing
| 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.
| eduction wrote:
| What? How? Where I am it is endless. Maybe it used to be
| worse but I have never heard of or seen someone getting a
| ticket for it or seen a single sign or heard an elected
| official so much as mention it.
| tommoor wrote:
| lol, lmao, etc.
| socalgal2 wrote:
| It was common in Shanghai. Then the government made it
| illegal and actually enforced it. 2 months later, no
| honking
| tommoor wrote:
| Yea, I live in downtown NYC and it's egregious. The
| selfishness of drivers here is frankly unfathomable
| projektfu wrote:
| In Atlanta you get honked at for merely not breaking the
| rules like the person behind you thinks you should. For
| example, not taking a right turn on red where the sign says
| "No Turn on Red", or not pulling out into oncoming traffic
| because the person behind would be crazy enough to do it.
| 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.
| crote wrote:
| I disagree, idiots are everywhere.
|
| The thing is, the vast majority of people - regardless of
| culture - have some basic sense of self-preservation.
| Speeding is easy when that 30km/h road is designed like a
| 120km/h highway. Speeding is a lot harder when that
| 30km/h road has speed bumps, chicanes, bottlenecks, and
| is paved with bricks rather than asphalt: if you try to
| speed, it'll quickly feel like you need to be a
| professional rally driver to keep your car under control.
|
| Deliberately making roads "unsafe" forces people to slow
| down, which in turn actually _makes_ it safe.
| gs17 wrote:
| That's true. I stopped riding the bus because the road to
| the stop had big speed bumps put in, and it turns out
| distracted drivers fly off the road when they hit them,
| and one near miss was enough to make me drive instead
| (sure it's a cognitive bias, but it's enough to make me
| pick the more convenient option). One fewer pedestrian
| means one fewer potential pedestrian death!
| 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!
| frosted-flakes wrote:
| In Ontario a new speed zone is always signed with
| "BEGINS" below it, which is very helpful if you missed
| the last sign. I wish this was standard practice across
| Canada.
|
| In much of Europe, including the UK, they have the
| concept of standardised "national" speed limits, which
| vary depending on the road type and which you are
| expected to know. When a road returns to the national
| speed limit, the sign is a white circle with a slash
| through it, indicating that there are no more local speed
| limits and the national speed limit is in effect.
| Symbiote wrote:
| There are at most three standard speed limits on Europe:
| built up areas, highways and motorways.
|
| I find this easier to remember than the constantly
| changing limits in the USA. In my two weeks here, I've
| seen every multiple of 5 between 5 and 70mph.
| kqr wrote:
| In Sweden at least, there's an informal rule that a new
| speed zone is marked with speed limit signs on both sides
| of the road, whereas a continued limit is marked with a
| sign only on the driving side of the road.
|
| I never quite saw the point though -- my response is the
| same either way: adhere to the limit that applies going
| forward. (I suppose maybe it's useful feedback of
| inattention and the need for rest?)
| 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).
| mtrovo wrote:
| That's not how a global policy works is it? The process
| was closer to a central guidance with enough notice for
| local councils to override it if they had the means to
| justify it.
|
| You don't need additional policing as you can reuse most
| of the speed limit infra that's already in place, just
| the baseline that has changed. It's orders of magnitude
| easier compared to the effort to catch a single
| unlicensed uninsured driver.
|
| And regarding the stats: the official report is just one
| google away https://www.gov.wales/police-recorded-road-
| collisions-2024-p.... The numbers are declining in the
| last decade but it accelerated to rates not seeing in the
| past apart from the pandemic.
|
| > These collisions on 20 and 30mph road speed limits
| (combined), resulted in 1,751 casualties, the lowest
| figure recorded since records began. This was a 20%
| decrease from the previous year, the largest annual fall
| apart from 2020 (during the COVID-19 pandemic).
|
| About collisions: > ... It is also 32% lower than the
| same quarter in 2022 (the last quarter 4 period before
| the change in default speed limit)
|
| And casualities: > ... The number of casualties on roads
| with 20 and 30mph road speed limits (combined) in 2024 Q4
| was the lowest quarter 4 figures in Wales since records
| began.
|
| There's no mention of widespread licence or insurance
| compliance problems on the official report so not sure
| where you're taking this as a significant problem.
| 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.
| stevekemp wrote:
| Last night _two_ cars tried to drive in front of a tram, on
| my ride to the Kallio block party.
|
| So while driving is generally calm, and I'm impressed at how
| often drives stop for the zebra-crossings, despite minimal
| notice, it's not universal.
| arp242 wrote:
| There's always a baseline of assholes.
| jks wrote:
| This may be the case, but as a Helsinki resident I am always
| surprised when visiting either Stockholm or Tallinn, because
| their drivers always seem more likely to honor zebra
| crossings than drivers in Helsinki.
| 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.
| BolexNOLA wrote:
| Maybe not but people tend to not go more than 5-10mph over
| unless they're on the interstate/highway. If it leads to
| overall significantly slower traffic it's worthwhile.
| ekianjo wrote:
| make cars not go faster than 30 mph at the engine control
| level. Problem solved and no need to put thousands of cameras
| everywhere.
| Earw0rm wrote:
| But muh freedumb.
| DaSHacka wrote:
| "'freedumb' is when you want your car to be capable of
| going over 30 mph"
| Earw0rm wrote:
| Which is fine and good on any road where the speed limit
| is over 30mph.
| petre wrote:
| Speed sensors that turn the traffic light red for 10 seconds
| are also quite effective without making the place dystopian
| with CCTVs and fines. I've seen it in Portugal. At the other
| end is Austria, which uses cameras and fines.
| 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...
| anilakar wrote:
| The fines are not draconian. Those insane sums that end up in
| headlines are always from super rich folks bitching about how
| they should be allowed to speed because they're such net
| contributors.
| rwyinuse wrote:
| I'm not sure about the enforcement part. In Finland we have
| one of the lowest amounts of policemen per capita, traffic
| police seriously lacks resources. Moderate speeding is pretty
| common due to that, despite the fines. Maybe it's better in
| Helsinki than other cities or the countryside, I don't know.
|
| I regularly drive about 300km trips without seeing a single
| police car, only one static traffic camera on the way.
| dilyevsky wrote:
| I've driven my fair share of kms around Finland and trust
| me - it's way more strict than here even though we probably
| have much higher traffic cops per capita number on paper
| crote wrote:
| How are the fines "draconian"? Everyone is fined the same
| when measured in _time_.
|
| If someone making minimum wage ($7/hour) gets a 30 year
| sentence for murder, should Jeff Bezos ($1,000,000/hour) be
| able to get out of jail for the _same_ offense after only 110
| minutes?
|
| If recklessly speeding costs the same as a cup of coffee, how
| is the fine supposed to act as a deterrent?
| dilyevsky wrote:
| Arguing semantics here. Over here they fine you very little
| to relative average income. The fines in sf are exactly
| same as in the middle of nowhere because they are mostly
| set at state level
| EasyMark wrote:
| do they charge as a % of annual income or wealth? I think
| that would be the key in the USA. I'll risk a $300 ticket for
| speeding, probably not a $3000 ticket
| 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.
| woodruffw wrote:
| Yes, that's why the second half of the equation is structural
| traffic calming: you both need to lower the speed limit _and_
| induce lower driving speeds. The US has historically not done
| a great job at the latter, and has mostly treated it as an
| enforcement problem (speeding cameras and tickets) rather
| than an environmental one (making the driver _feel
| uncomfortable_ going over the speed limit, e.g. by making
| roads narrower, adding curves, etc.). You need both, but
| environmental calming is much more effective on the >95% of
| the populace that speeds because it "feels right," and not
| because they're sociopathically detached.
|
| That's slowly changing, like in NYC with daylighting
| initiatives. But it takes a long time.
|
| (European cities typically don't have this same shape of
| problem, since the physical layout of the city itself doesn't
| encourage speeding. So they get the environmental incentive
| structure already, and all they need to do is lower the speed
| limit to match.)
| DaSHacka wrote:
| > the >95% of the populace that speeds because it "feels
| right," and not because they're sociopathically detached.
|
| What about driving over the speed limit makes one
| "sociopathically detached"?
| crote wrote:
| The part where they are deliberately choosing to endanger
| their fellow citizens?
|
| Damage scales with the square of speed. Speed limits
| aren't put in place for _fun_ , they are there to reduce
| the number of accidents. A speed limit says "Accidents
| are likely, slow down to reduce the severity of them".
| Hitting a pedestrian at 30 km/h means they'll be injured,
| hitting a pedestrian at 50 km/h means they'll be dead. If
| you're speeding, you're essentially saying that _you_
| arriving a few seconds faster at your destination is more
| important than _someone else_ dying.
|
| On top of that, a difference in speed greatly increases
| the number of accidents. If everyone drives at 30 km/h,
| that one person at 50 km/h will constantly be tailgating
| and overtaking. That is _far_ more likely to result in
| accidents than simply following the car in front of you
| at a safe distance.
| Mawr wrote:
| The enclosed nature of the car is what does that.
| woodruffw wrote:
| I think you misread this. The point was that >95% of
| people drive over the speed limit because it feels right,
| not because they're sociopaths. Making it feel wrong to
| speed is sufficient for most people.
| timeon wrote:
| You also need law enforcement and/or narrower lanes.
| 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.
| kqr wrote:
| You notice this quickly when cycling in cities. Cars take
| _forever_ to safely negotiate their way through intersections
| thanks to their size.
| jeroenhd wrote:
| I notice this from within a car as well. Cars take forever
| and waste so much space taking turns, merging, switching
| lanes. The issue seems to grow exponentially with vehicle
| size as well; nippy small cars turn and navigate a lot
| better compared to American genital compensation trucks.
| arp242 wrote:
| Even cycling into the city from my neighbouring town (~10
| km) can be faster than a car at peak rush hour, because
| city traffic is just an absolute gridlock (this is in
| Galway Ireland, the traffic of which is notoriously bad
| even by Irish standards, but still).
| 1970-01-01 wrote:
| You suck at safety. Weather, distracted driving, vehicle
| design, drugs, and even safety inspections all contributed to
| safer streets. Ducks have a preen gland near their tails that
| produces oil, which they use to waterproof their feathers.
| EasyMark wrote:
| KE = 1/2 * m v^2
| 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.
| mitthrowaway2 wrote:
| From the article:
|
| > Cycling and walking infrastructure has been expanded in
| recent years, helping to separate vulnerable road users from
| motor traffic.
|
| > Helsinki's current traffic safety strategy runs from 2022
| to 2026 and includes special measures to protect pedestrians,
| children, and cyclists.
| lanfeust6 wrote:
| With no numbers offered. Lots of cities "expanded" cycling
| infrastructure but can't boast that level of safety. By far
| the strongest distinguising factor is the speed limit. That
| is a mere policy that doesnt cost taxpayers billions, it
| works, and therefore is politically viable.
|
| "Special measures" is not just code for bike lanes either.
| 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.
| woodruffw wrote:
| You've sort of given it away with the "smaller cities" thing.
| People who live in NYC don't want to live in a smaller
| American-style city with suburban sprawl.
|
| (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.
| That number, already terrible, would be far worse without the
| city's mass transit -- you _simply cannot_ support the kind
| of density NYC endeavors for with car-oriented development.)
| cyberax wrote:
| 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-sized city in
| Europe.
|
| The fix for cities like NYC is to stop building them and
| start de-densifying them.
| masklinn wrote:
| > well-designed human-oriented city like Houston
|
| Said no urban planner in the history of urban planning.
| Or NJB (https://youtu.be/uxykI30fS54)
|
| > FASTER commutes than ANY similar-sized city in Europe.
|
| Houston ranks 7th worst traffic in the US. The internet
| tells me you're boasting of 30mn for an "average 6 miles
| commute". That's bicycle distance and speed that you need
| to drive due to a broken city.
| cyberax wrote:
| > Said no urban planner in the history of urban planning.
| Or NJB (https://youtu.be/uxykI30fS54)
|
| Wrong. Houston is a great example for planners who care
| about housing availability and the quality of life for
| the people. And not bike lanes and road diets.
|
| > Houston ranks 7th worst traffic in the US.
|
| Yes. And the 7th worst traffic in the US is STILL BETTER
| than any large European city's oh-so-great transit.
|
| Tells you volumes, doesn't it?
| Earw0rm wrote:
| You do know that cities are for things besides going from
| your suburban family home unit to your workplace and back
| again?
| Mawr wrote:
| > Here's the thing. A well-designed human-oriented city
| like Houston has FASTER commutes than ANY similar-sized
| city in Europe.
|
| Didn't I debunk your nonsense "data" last time? Why are
| you repeating incorrect data when you've been corrected?
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=42648738
| woodruffw wrote:
| 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.
| makeitdouble wrote:
| > well-designed car-oriented city
|
| Might be true, but at this point it's an utopian level of
| fantasy. We spent more than a century with cars in old
| cities, new cities, smaller ones bigger ones.
|
| The only proven results we've had is reducing cars solveany
| problems at once.
| booleandilemma wrote:
| Bike lanes are kinda scary in nyc though, because bikers
| usually refuse to stop for red lights, creating a hazard for
| pedestrians.
|
| I once saw a biker yell at a pedestrian to get out of the way,
| even though she was the one who was going through a red light.
|
| More than once I've seen a biker almost plow into someone
| trying to cross the street.
| anilakar wrote:
| When I see someone violating cycling traffic code, nine times
| out of ten it's an electric skateboard, rental city bike or a
| food delivery guy on an electric moped (legally bicycles when
| limited to 25 km/h).
|
| And those spandex-wearing road cyclists and commuters that
| motorists like to bitch about so much? The best law-abiding
| folks I've seen.
| 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.
| _3u10 wrote:
| At least your daughter had a good time.
| lettergram wrote:
| There's a reason rural folks have a higher fatality rate.
| That said, at least in the US, there's the presumption
| that those who live more rural are more rugged, capable,
| and harder working.
|
| I used to live in Chicago and SF. I've since moved to
| rural Tennessee. I can tell you everyone, including my
| kids, now have learned to drive our tractor. Granted I'm
| with them, but we had my 4-5 year old moving hay and they
| were helping me change oil.
|
| I understand the concern, but everyone learns through
| doing. There's definitely danger in that, and you should
| try to limit risk. At the same time; not teaching them is
| also high risk in that environment, as they'll do it
| anyway with friends later.
| tormeh wrote:
| A car is not a tractor. The risks are really very
| different, and generally don't relate to speed.
| erikerikson wrote:
| > those who live more rural are more rugged, capable, and
| harder working.
|
| As someone who grew up rural and still has roots but
| moved to the city for work, this holds with a high
| probability.
| Symbiote wrote:
| In the UK I think this would be illegal. Children must be
| at least 13 to operate some limited machinery.
|
| Still, farmers think they know better and about one child
| a year dies from it.
| watwut wrote:
| Rural superiority complex is very real. Rural people can
| be extremely condescending and openly feel much superior
| then people in the cities.
|
| Large politics is such that insulting city people is
| completely acceptable, but dare you say anything about
| rural people.
| alexey-salmin wrote:
| There's definitely a cultural difference but whether it's
| an issue is debatable.
| fabioborellini wrote:
| Finnish rural boys rarely have other personality traits
| than their favourite car brand. It's usually BMW or
| Volvo, and friendships must follow the shared brand
| following. Someone driving a Nissan Micra should starve
| to death, according to both camps.
| lawlessone wrote:
| Sounds like Windows and Linux users talking about Macs
| bluedino wrote:
| The urban America equivalent are teenage to twenty
| something males crashing Dodge Chargers at high speeds at
| 2:00am
| BirAdam wrote:
| In the South, this is an issue everywhere, not just
| cities. Any vehicle, even mildly capable, will be wrecked
| by young men traveling way too fast, on dangerous roads,
| and often inebriated.
| teiferer wrote:
| > this is the best way to get the boys used to engines
| and driving.
|
| Because that Y chromosome makes all the difference. /s
| heavenlyblue wrote:
| I saw tourists parking cars in New Zealand and, because
| the road is on an incline sideways, some cars would fall
| into a ditch.
|
| Was the car driven recklessly or was it a
| parking/reversing mistake? This kind of thinking just
| brings unnecessary racism.
|
| You would think that UK would have a lower rate of
| traffic incidents with it's "safe" approach to driving
| but numbers speak the opposite.
| 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
| rwyinuse wrote:
| Yet most deadly months for traffic in Finland are summer
| months, when more people are driving, drinking alcohol and
| having a lot of free time.
|
| At least in the countryside a stereotypical summer month
| death is one where bunch of young men go to a party with
| their old BMW or Merc, and then drive back in middle of the
| night at a crazy speed and hit a tree. Bonus points for the
| driver being drunk/on drugs and nobody wearing seatbelts.
| mmasu wrote:
| is it also possible that one of the side effects of this
| are that people driving recreationally become sometimes
| exceptionally good at it? see how many great f1/rally
| pilots Finland has generated. Clearly not good when this
| happens while drunk tho
| rwyinuse wrote:
| Yes, I think it's definitely a factor. Recreational
| driving is a favorite past-time in the countryside, and
| due to the forest industry there are lots of dirt roads
| which are perfect for rally driving, many purpose-built
| race tracks around the country as well. So the barrier of
| entry is probably lower than in most places. It's also
| not too uncommon for kids whose parents own / have access
| to some land to have some old, unregistered car to
| practice with away from public roads.
|
| There is even a popular racing class called
| "jokamiehenluokka", where drivers are obliged to sell
| their cars for 2000 euros if somebody makes an offer.
| That rule is designed to keep the barrier of entry low,
| as drivers don't have the incentive to invest too much
| into their car. Apparently you can take the exam tojoin
| at age of 15, which is 3 years before the normal minimum
| age for driving license.
|
| I recommend the game "My Summer Car" for those interested
| in all this culture.
| unangst wrote:
| Bonus points- Additional sadness
| teiferer wrote:
| A major reason for the substantial difference in life
| expectancy at birth between the genders. It becomes more
| even above 30-40.
| chasd00 wrote:
| 2hrs ago I was on switchbacks coming up into the mountains
| outside of San Jose Costa Rica. I come around one and bam
| there's a 7-9 year old girl walking up the road in the middle
| of the lane. How the mountain roads in Costa Rica don't run
| red with blood I don't know.
| Tomis02 wrote:
| You could share the road with others, you know? You weren't
| born behind the wheel.
| sfn42 wrote:
| This is why you always need to adjust your speed so that
| you are capable of comfortably stopping in the area of road
| that you can see clearly.
|
| If you're going around a blind turn or over a hill or any
| other situation where you can't see very far ahead, you
| need to slow down so that you can safely react to surprises
| in the road.
|
| If your driving puts you in situations where a girl walking
| in the road exposes you, then you are not driving safely.
| You should always be able to handle that situation, if you
| can't then you are going too fast.
|
| This goes for any road, including highways, and any
| vehicle, including fully loaded semi trucks and bicycles,
| go-karts, whatever. The only situation in which this does
| not apply is in racing on closed tracks.
|
| The law in most places agrees - if you had hit that girl
| then you would have been held liable.
|
| Thats not to say the pedestrian wasn't acting recklessly,
| but considering the pedestrian was a child we can't really
| blame them. An adult should know better than putting
| themselves in front of a fast moving vehicle though. Most
| pedestrians involved in accidents could have avoided it by
| paying attention. It's generally the people who just walk
| out in front of moving cars that get hit by cars. A car
| hitting pedestrians on the side walk is much rarer.
|
| I look both ways before crossing a one way street and I
| never walk into a pedestrian crossing until I am sure that
| the oncoming car is stopping. I realize that strategy
| doesn't work everywhere in the world, in Bangkok you pretty
| much just walk into traffic and hope that a few dozen
| motorists see and avoid you. But in many places cars will
| stop to let pedestrians cross.
| globular-toast wrote:
| That's because in the UK people just don't walk, except in
| certain places. You wouldn't get this crane incident
| happening in London, for example. But in other places people
| just won't walk there. One way to reduce deaths is just get
| everyone into cars.
| prmoustache wrote:
| > One way to reduce deaths is just get everyone into cars.
|
| That is the opposite actually.
| occz wrote:
| >One way to reduce deaths is just get everyone into cars.
|
| A patently absurd claim that holds up to no scrutiny
| whatsoever. The whole nation of the U.S disproves it, for
| one.
| globular-toast wrote:
| We have far better roads, vehicle testing and driver
| training than the US.
| jeromegv wrote:
| And do you have a better rate of fatality on the roads?
| graemep wrote:
| Yes, far lower. The US had approx 40,000 road deaths in
| 2024, the UK 1,600
|
| Whether you divide that to get a per vehicle, per capita
| or a per mile travelled number its far, far lower.
| zimpenfish wrote:
| > You wouldn't get this crane incident happening in London,
| for example.
|
| I'm assuming you mean "blocking the pavement without
| signage" there?
|
| Although even that is a stretch because I can assure you
| that blocking the pavement with cranes, commercial
| vehicles, personal vehicles, etc. happens all over the damn
| place in London, with and without signage.
| graemep wrote:
| Really? People walk everywhere in the UK I have lived in -
| London, Manchester, and small towns. Edge of town
| currently, there are regularly crowds of kids walking to
| school going past, people going to the convenience store or
| cafe nearby, people walking dogs, people walking to get the
| bus......
|
| If buses were more frequent people would take them more,
| and use their cars less.
|
| People can be very reliant on cars really rural areas but
| that is a small proportion of the population.
| hdgvhicv wrote:
| People walk everywhere in London. Outside of London and
| some major cities, cars are constantly blocking pavements
| and that's certainly an issue, and gets a reasonable amount
| of coverage in local press and Facebook because people do
| walk.
|
| Majority of kids at my cons schools walk home or to the bus
| station. We're unusual living miles away from any connected
| transport.
| jon-wood wrote:
| I can only assume you're either not in the UK yourself, or
| you're one of those people who thinks that because they
| drive even the shortest distances everyone else does. I
| walk daily, anything from down the road to a shop to right
| across town, most of the roads are set up to deal with that
| and have decent crossings so I don't get mowed down by a
| car.
|
| The suggestion that people don't walk in London is
| hilarious to me, have you never seen a central London
| street as people leave work? You can barely move for
| pedestrians.
| globular-toast wrote:
| I walk everywhere. I've walked across large portions of
| the country (literally weeks of walking at a time).
| London is one of the "certain places", as are other inner
| cities. Outer cities and the countryside are owned by
| cars. People aren't getting hurt because they only walk
| in designated areas. Cars are basically required in other
| places. Just a few weirdos like me walking and cycling.
| jon-wood wrote:
| I'll accept there are some country roads that I wouldn't
| want my 11 year old son walking on his own, but I live in
| an outer city and it's fine, even quite pleasant with the
| number of parks and cut throughs you can walk down.
| chrz wrote:
| beacuse traffic is so bad that no cars are really moving on
| city streets. The artificial safety of overly putting more
| lights than necessary is slowing down whole city and make it
| safer this way. The poeple and culture as whole is even less
| safety aware because of over governance and warning signs
| everywhere
| fmbb wrote:
| There is nothing artificial about that.
|
| The more you annoy drivers of cars and the less efficient
| you make streets for car traffic and the more you force
| them to not trust their surroundings, the safer the streets
| are for everyone.
| ifwinterco wrote:
| In theory but in London everyone is driving in a state of
| incandescent rage due to the non stop traffic lights and
| restrictions and people sometimes end up doing insane
| things because they've basically lost their head.
|
| There are limits to the "deliberately piss everyone off"
| strategy
| louthy wrote:
| They're driving at 20mph because the whole of London is a
| 20mph zone now. So incandescence or not, accidents are
| still relatively low for a major metropolis.
| bobthepanda wrote:
| Usually roundabouts are way better for this than
| excessive stoplighting. With stoplighting you run the
| risk of basically "the boy who cried wolf" and people
| becoming numb and starting to run reds.
| nixass wrote:
| > 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.
|
| Given how anal Health & Safety in the UK is this is really
| impressive observation
| tim333 wrote:
| I live in London and my impression is the opposite, that they
| go kind of mad with cones. One guy digs a small hole and the
| whole street is coned off and covered with "bus stop closed"
| signs. Which means the bus drives past because there is a
| small hole 50m away.
| iamgopal wrote:
| when that crane will reach end of its life, it will be move to
| india for another 10-15 years of service life.
| throwmeaway222 wrote:
| In America they would call that a Karen. Our society is doing
| anything it can to drop into total chaos by 2030.
| bsimpson wrote:
| Switzerland has the most pristine roads of anywhere I've ever
| ridden. They also have a bonkers amount of road construction.
| _kidlike wrote:
| most pristine roads with most hostile arrangement towards
| drivers, at least in Zurich. There are some insanely
| complicated intersections in 4D, that if you don't follow the
| correct series of 10 consecutive lane switches and sub-exits
| in 2 minutes you end up with a 20 minute mistake. Country
| side is very enjoyable though.
| PeterStuer wrote:
| Basel has a few of those puzzles as well.
| paffdragon wrote:
| Funny, but that was my impression of UK when I first visited
| (like 20 years ago). Cones, everywhere cones. As opposed to
| what I was used to in Eastern Europe where people just jumped
| off a car with shovels in the middle of the crossroads to fill
| a hole while drivers tried to navigate around them.
| OJFord wrote:
| Yeah, if there aren't cones around something like this it's
| more likely that it's because the previous group out of the
| pub wandered off with them on their heads and left them as
| hats on statues on their way home, imo.
| kqr wrote:
| Indeed. The "cones" used in the Nordics are diagonally striped
| bollard-like things[1]. As a local, I can tell whether the work
| is done by professionals not based on whether cones are present
| (they are), but it comes down to if they're _turned the right
| way_. (The lower part of the diagonal should point toward
| traffic -- the less serious contractors don 't follow that
| rule.)
|
| [1]:
| https://vkmedia.imgix.net/86qD1SWIAtgMMWi86U3gIV82t5U.jpg?au...
| mgfist wrote:
| > 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 crashing onto people
| dpe82 wrote:
| 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.
| SOLAR_FIELDS wrote:
| That's funny when I was there someone had literally driven a
| car into a hole in the road contractors had made. Was like you
| just walking back to my hotel after some beers and was like
| huh, that's a car in a sinkhole. So it does happen
| TechDebtDevin wrote:
| I lived in Norway for a few years, and something I thought was
| interesting is everyone who went on a walk would wear a hi-viz
| vest/arm band.
|
| The kindergartners were cute, they'd all where hi viz overalls
| on their afternoon walks and be tied together like sled dogs.
|
| Another thing in Norway, at least in the town I was in, it was
| almost a guarantee that you'd be breathalyzed on a early
| saturday/sunday morning if you were driving and leaving main
| arteries of the town.
|
| And I was told even if you were .02 you'd lose your license for
| a year, and 10% of you salary as a fine. This is only one
| drink. Many Norwegians would drink NA beer at lunch because of
| this (get wildly drunk once home in the evening). Think of how
| easy it would be to stop drinking at 2-4am and sleep until 10am
| to go to breakfast, and still be at .02. They take it really
| seriously.
|
| While I was there also, the cops only fired a gun once the
| entire two years (for the whole country).
|
| People say Norway is able to have a society like this because
| of their size. I disagree, its definitely cultural (they were
| mostly egalitarian up until this last century) and has nothing
| to do with size.
|
| Another weird thing, in the town I was in you couldn't mow your
| lawn on Sundays, or do anything that was super loud. This town
| was very Christain, but throughout the whole country they took
| their rest on the weekends extremely seriously, annoyingly so.
| Sesse__ wrote:
| > The kindergartners were cute, they'd all where hi viz
| overalls on their afternoon walks and be tied together like
| sled dogs.
|
| They're typically not tied together. There's a rope and
| everybody is told to hold on to it (this makes it a lot less
| likely that anyone wanders off into traffic).
|
| > And I was told even if you were .02 you'd lose your license
| for a year, and 10% of you salary as a fine.
|
| This is only partially true. Up to .02 is legal. Between that
| and .05 you get a fine (which is indeed around 10% of your
| salary). Up to .12 you get a fine plus typically a suspended
| sentence. There's no automatic loss of license for driving
| with .02 or .05, although of course at some point you go to
| court and are likely to lose it (like most other countries).
|
| Basically what happened when we moved the limit from .05 to
| .02 is that people stopped having "only one beer" (which is,
| of course, at risk of becoming three) before driving home.
| You choose a designated driver or you take public transport.
| It was a Good Thing.
|
| > While I was there also, the cops only fired a gun once the
| entire two years (for the whole country).
|
| This is, unfortunately, changing. Norwegian police fired only
| nine shots in 2024 (plus ten more that went off by accident),
| but the police now carry guns as a general rule after a
| controversial change of law (save for higher-risk occasions,
| they used to have it locked down in their car), so you can
| expect this number to increase.
|
| > Another weird thing, in the town I was in you couldn't mow
| your lawn on Sundays, or do anything that was super loud.
|
| This is, indeed, the law in the entire country (together with
| most shops having to close etc.). But the rules are sort of
| nebulous and nowhere near universally enforced; if you call
| the cops about your neighbor being noisy, they are highly
| unlikely to do anything about it.
| jcul wrote:
| There have been a few attempts in Ireland to make it illegal
| to walk at night without high viz.
| heavenlyblue wrote:
| Very much disagree about this, European expats often make fun
| of how many cones are regularly used on the roads in the UK.
| randomfinn3287 wrote:
| Safety is taken seriously in Finland, but that is not normal
| behavior, I don't know of anyone who would call the police in
| that situation. Sounds more like some kind of 'virtual
| signaling' after a few beers or other kind of awkward behavior
| in an unfamiliar social situation where there were visitors
| from abroad. Or just being a karen like someone else suggested
| (and got downvoted), but anyways not normal.
|
| Source: me, a Finn living in the Helsinki region.
| repeekad wrote:
| That's not basic safety, if you walk into a crane not in use
| that's on you not the contractors. It's paternalism, not
| safety, and the American in me groans at the idea of at
| midnight the cops showing up and causing a ruckus over that. A
| big hole you might fall into, yeah you need some cones
| tsimionescu wrote:
| This is not about walking into the crane, it's about cones on
| the road to ensure that pedestrians can safely walk around
| the crane onto the road without walking into traffic.
| Basically, the crane operators, if they're going to take up
| the whole sidewalk, have to ensure that pedestrians have a
| safe way to pass around them, and that means they have to
| work to close a part of the road and mark that.
| mazugrin2 wrote:
| The cones aren't to alert the pedestrians the the crane. The
| cones are to mark out a path in the road for pedestrians and
| to alert auto drivers to that path. As an American I get that
| you don't typically walk anywhere but I can't believe you've
| never ever encountered a set of high visibility cones marking
| out a temporary path around construction equipment on a
| roadway.
| bobthepanda wrote:
| In much of the US the default is to close the sidewalk if
| it exists and require pedestrians to use the other side of
| the road.
| Symbiote wrote:
| I've found this very annoying on a recent trip to the
| USA.
|
| There's 3+ lanes of road. Close one of these lanes to
| cars and let the pedestrians use it!
| firstofmany wrote:
| The problem wasn't some drunk idiot walking into a crane at
| night, it was that the contractors had blocked the footpath,
| forcing pedestrians - including the disabled, small children
| and people with babies in strollers - to walk into the road
| unprotected. I mean, would you think it was over-reavhing
| paternalism if the police intervened because some contractors
| set up a crane in a lane of the freeway without setting up
| cones, etc.? It's the same basic issue.
| Nifty3929 wrote:
| Sure they do - but maybe past the point of treating people like
| adults.
|
| I admit I'm not sure about Finland, but in some places they
| have hot-water stops on faucets that prevent you from turning
| it up to hot without additional mechanical fiddling, like and
| extra push or button or something. Or being afraid of normal
| (to me) pocket knives with 3-4" blades, as though they were a
| dangerous weapon. That's just too much concern over safety for
| my taste. I want to be treated like an adult, and I'm not
| afraid of minor injuries or discomfort.
| 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?
| sosborn wrote:
| My money would go on mobile phone usage.
| jeromegv wrote:
| Every countries in the world got cellphones. Many saw a
| drop in fatalies on the road, others it went up (US).
| Cellphones surely don't help and are awful but once you
| hit someone the size of the car (and speed!) matters on
| the outcome and cars are bigger in the US.
| jamesblonde wrote:
| "Large cars are not the primary driver of increased
| pedestrian deaths in the USA"
|
| Evidence free claim. Sometimes correlation indicates
| causation.
| wyre wrote:
| Incorrect. Light trucks account for 54% of pedestrian
| fatalities compared to passenger cars at 37%. Impossible
| for more than half to not be considered the primary
| cause.
|
| https://www.ghsa.org/resource-hub/pedestrian-traffic-
| fatalit...
| 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:
| The key of the new proposal is how they are going to
| define zones (neighbourhoods). Knowing the politics in
| SF, I think they will probably say that zone is 7-miles
| radius (and SF is 49 square miles).
| coccinelle wrote:
| The lottery has been around since way before 2020, I
| believe. You do get preferential assignment to one school
| close to you. Most schools can take in all the kids that
| have this neighborhood preference but I believe there are
| a couple that don't. (This is for Kindergarten, TK is
| more of a mess).
| inglor_cz wrote:
| I wonder if future centuries will look at the current
| obsession with diversity (tbh the peak is visibly behind
| us) the same way that we look at the ancient Egyptians
| collecting amulets with holy dung beetles: an utterly
| incomprehensible ritual.
| 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.
| hattmall wrote:
| It insane to me that anyone, let alone enough people to
| actually make it happen, would think that was a good
| policy. It's bussing, but without the busses.
| Taek wrote:
| There's a striking lack of accountability in politics.
| You don't really need evidence that a policy is going to
| accomplish it's stated goals, you just need the monkey
| brain narrative to resonate with voters (and the other
| elements of the political apparatus)
| airspresso wrote:
| In the Nordics almost everything that gets passed as law
| has been thorough studies of impact and consequence
| first. Takes a long time but means the law has a chance
| of actually having the intended effect.
| jrflowers 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
|
| It is frustrating to see this happen when --while it
| would be more expensive-- they could've dealt with that
| by just
| potato3732842 wrote:
| Stop saying "the city". The city is a faceless opaque
| blob. It only cares about things people care about
| because caring about things is good for it.
|
| There are demographics and individuals who work hard to
| bring these net negative boondoggles into reality and
| they ought to take blame.
| 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...
| sib wrote:
| "the cheapest way to solve the problem"
|
| Which, it should be noted, has not at all solved the
| problem. Shockingly.
| ekianjo wrote:
| > in SF, there's a policy that prevents kids from
| attending elementary school in their own neighborhoods
|
| thats a solid reason to leave the place already
| 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.
| panick21_ wrote:
| Even places with good public transport have lots of cars.
| Cars always fill up all space. You need good public
| transport, and limit cars in other ways for good results.
| dmix wrote:
| The same question could be asked why more cars elsewhere. If
| only the western municipalities could figure out how to do it
| without spending decade on a simple tram like they do in
| Toronto then the public support would very likely match the
| benefits people constantly claim on the internet. Ditto with
| high speed rail.
|
| Things which are practical and economically feasible within
| the established system are much less liable to be
| controversial or end up DOA after having to survive through
| 3-4 different political administrations.
| PeterStuer wrote:
| Public transport in and around Helsinki is extremely good.
| Both busses and rail are very reliable, comfortable and clean
| with free wifi everywhere.
| 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.
| ricardobeat wrote:
| Because having less cars is both intentional and a result of
| public policies, and this is covered in the article.
| bkettle wrote:
| Are you referring to the Jersey City mention when you say
| counterexample? It's excellent and absolutely worth
| celebrating that a US city was able to achieve this for a
| year, but just like Helsinki's car-use stats, it was also no
| fluke: not only is Jersey City in the most transit-friendly
| metro area in the country (NYC), but they've also had a huge
| focus on trying to achieve vision zero and (unlike many other
| cities who claim to also be trying to achieve vision zero)
| have been aggressively implementing changes to street design
| that improve safety and encourage non-car modes of transport,
| often by slowing down cars [1, 2].
|
| And unfortunately, Jersey City had deaths on their city roads
| again in 2023 and 2024 [3]. We need to be doing everything we
| can to study places that are doing things well, because we
| have a long way to go.
|
| 1. https://apnews.com/article/hoboken-zero-traffic-deaths-
| dayli... 2. https://youtu.be/gwu1Cf8G9u8?si=2WWsj5EvTs8CTU8T
| 3. https://cdnsm5-hosted.civiclive.com/UserFiles/Servers/Serv
| er...
| notTooFarGone wrote:
| This is the most "p-hacking" thing ever. If you take a
| hundred US cities over 20 years you have 2000 data points.
| The probability of outliers to cherry pick from is quite
| high. Doesn't mean that jersey is not doing things right
| but please don't act like it's the shining example of
| vehicular safety.
|
| It's not comparable to Nordic countries at all.
| stetrain wrote:
| > Maybe Helsinki isn't special: just fewer cars
|
| That is special for a modern western city, and is likely the
| result of intentional policy and urban planning.
|
| Many cities base most of their development around fitting in
| more cars, not reducing them. And that comes with lots of
| negative statistics related to car density.
|
| You're right that it's not magic. Other cities could likely
| achieve similar results with similar policies. They are just
| very resistant to that change.
| panick21_ wrote:
| > not about urban planning genius or Scandinavian magic
|
| Fewer cars IS THE MAGIC and fewer cars IS GREAT URBAN planning.
| sitkack wrote:
| Cars are obviously the problem. All cars, small cars, large
| cars, gas cars, electric cars, all cars are the problem.
| yard2010 wrote:
| Yes. In the future there will be no cars and no deaths
| related to them. We just live in the 1800' of our time.
| arrrg wrote:
| This is a nonsensical generalization.
|
| This is the observation: we massively overshoot in terms of
| the role (space, infrastructure) we assign to cars,
| especially in densely populated areas.
|
| If we can create viable alternatives to driving we can make
| these places much, much more enjoyable. Quieter, nicer to
| be around, more human scale, more convenient.
|
| That's all. Nowhere in there is any claim that cars aren't
| immensely useful. In less densely populated people. For
| people with disabilities. Etc.
|
| Why can't we have the nice things? And yeah, the nice
| things do include walkable cities like we had them in 19th
| century. Sometimes and in some places to a very limited
| extent the past with some modern conveniences (like trams,
| modern bicycles) was better.
| Mawr wrote:
| I don't think bicycles, trams, buses and trains existed
| back then in the way they do now.
| Sharlin wrote:
| There used to be dozens of traffic deaths per year in Helsinki
| back in the 60s. When there were fewer people and much fewer
| cars. Most of the dead were pedestrians (as opposed to outside
| urban zones where motorists mostly tend to kill themselves and
| any unfortunate passengers). Do NOT dare to downplay this
| achievement. It is the result of decades of work and changing
| attitudes of what is acceptable.
| timeon wrote:
| > Plus their cars are much smaller.
|
| Not smaller then in other European places. It is just that US
| cars are extremely huge.
| airspresso wrote:
| Exactly. US is the outlier vs the rest of the world when it
| comes to car size.
| drstewart wrote:
| Ooh wow. How big are Canadian cars?
| LastTrain wrote:
| Smaller than US cars on average.
| drstewart wrote:
| Source?
| CalRobert wrote:
| But... fewer cars and fewer trips using a car is literally the
| thing that makes it better.
| Wilder7977 wrote:
| Achieving a low amount of trips done by car is already
| something that doesn't happen magically, and is the result of
| policy decisions (e.g., invest in public transport). Then there
| are speed limits, road designs etc.
| tincholio wrote:
| And the cost of parking... Parking your car in Hki is eye-
| watering
| Maxion wrote:
| Weekdays during office hours, yeah. Sundays street parking
| is mostly free.
| andrepd wrote:
| > So maybe it's not about urban planning
|
| That's ridiclulous, there's fewer cars _because_ there is good
| urban planning...
|
| An infinite number of cities in the world are less dense than
| Helsinki but are traffic-ridden shitholes because they are
| developed with only The Car in mind.
| EasyMark wrote:
| but it would probably be hard to find an American city of just
| 10k people that didn't have a few car/car-related deaths a
| year, DUI, pedestrians, bicyclists--something. Helsinki is
| 660,000 people
| 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.
| jcgl wrote:
| It seems like European trucks with their cab-over-engine design
| generally have far better visibility than their American
| counterparts. Not to mention the fact that they're often
| smaller and more maneuverable.
|
| Where I live in Europe, I'm always impressed to see how well
| these trucks are able to function in mixed-use areas. Never
| would have seen this where I grew up in the US.
| throw-qqqqq wrote:
| AFAIK the European design is made to minimize the length of
| the truck.
|
| There is an EU limit on the total length of the truck and
| trailer in Europe (default 18.75m, EMS 25.25 etc.).
| jcgl wrote:
| That reduced length is doubtless a big part of how they
| seem able operate successfully in the urban fabric. It'd be
| unthinkable with American-sized trucks and trailers.
|
| Tangentially, the smaller ambulances and fire trucks here
| seem so much more sensible than what you see in America.
| Generally, I'd remark that many city design problems get
| easier if you can scale down the problem. In this case, the
| problem of managing and integrating motor vehicles.
|
| Tangent to the tangent: I sure don't miss the ear-splitting
| sirens you hear in the US. Good god.
| theluketaylor wrote:
| North American fire departments are among the biggest
| blockers of urban road safety improvements here,
| demanding huge lanes for huge trucks. Those lanes leave
| tons of space for other drivers, leaving them feeling
| safe to speed, resulting in more carnage when pedestrians
| are hit.
|
| Those huge trucks are also all custom built chassis and
| incredibly expensive.
|
| European fire departments using customized versions of
| off the shelf commercial vehicles are so much more
| sensible for urban spaces and don't need to drive
| transportation decisions.
| jcgl wrote:
| My only familiarity with what you're saying comes from a
| Not Just Bikes video. Pretty striking, though I've not
| done any research to corroborate it.
| 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.
| Taek wrote:
| That's horrible. That's basically saying "let's make sure a ton
| of people are dying early so that some percentage of them can
| be used to save lives"
|
| Nobody should ever, ever be in favor of putting people in harms
| way to increase the availability of organs. At that point you
| might as well just advocate for a harvest lottery based on how
| many miles people travel by car.
| bravesoul2 wrote:
| I wonder if speed control of 50 to 30 km/h makes journeys faster
| in a city where you will hit traffic and traffic lights anyway.
| More consistent speeds, less braking.
| zahlman wrote:
| Removing unnecessary stop lights (they will often become
| unnecessary when cars can just stop if there are pedestrians
| crossing, which is much easier from 30 than from 50) and even
| replacing intersections with roundabouts can make a big
| difference here (as long as you somehow get a population that
| understands what a roundabout is, anyway).
| Maxion wrote:
| The proliferation of roundabouts over stoplights in Espoo has
| massively improved traffic in many many areas since I was a
| kid and it was all stoplights.
| pentagrama wrote:
| Through reading the article, I was reminded of many talking
| points from videos on the YouTube channel Not Just Bikes [1].
|
| Highly recommended if you're interested in urban mobility.
|
| [1] https://youtube.com/@NotJustBikes
| hmottestad wrote:
| In Oslo we seem to have a problem with trucks. Just in the past
| year, two people have been run over and killed by trucks. One was
| where the truck driver was reversing and another where the truck
| driver did an illegal right turn over a pavement.
|
| Recently there has been a case in the courts where a truck driver
| didn't yield to a cyclist and killed her. The narrative from the
| national truck association was basically that the cyclist was at
| fault. Even the courts were in on it, only when it got to the
| highest court did it seem that anyone was willing to blame the
| truck driver.
| zahlman wrote:
| For reference, this is a city roughly comparable to Milwaukee in
| population (considering all of city/urban/metro numbers).
| ipnon wrote:
| And Minnesota is a famously Nordic state, many Swedes
| immigrated in 19th and 20th centuries.
| quailfarmer wrote:
| Milwaukee isn't in Minnesota, Eh!
| ipnon wrote:
| Everywhere between Greenwich Village and Russian Hill is
| the same to me.
| Nemo_bis wrote:
| > The data shows that of 82 traffic deaths in Milwaukee County
| last year, 63 were in the city of Milwaukee.
|
| https://www.wpr.org/news/milwaukee-county-data-address-traff...
|
| For reference, Milwaukee is roughly comparable to Antwerp in
| population and size.
| efitz 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_
|
| For us metric-impaired, 30 km/h ~ 19 mph.
|
| In the United States, school zones with children present are
| generally 15-25mph. fit adult humans run at 8-9 mph.
|
| If it works for Finns and they like it, great. Americans would
| not accept speed limits so low.
| RamblingCTO wrote:
| > If it works for Finns and they like it, great. Americans
| would not accept speed limits so low.
|
| European cities are way denser though. So you have less view of
| the area because of smaller streets and very densely parked
| cars. I found the limits in the US comparable to what I'd drive
| in Germany in cities. Maybe Sedona is a one off, but it felt
| very familiar. For me, wider roads and better view means I can
| drive 50-55kmh and that's what the limits were. Smaller and
| denser street means 25-30kmh which is around 15-20mph? We even
| have the "you can make a right turn at red after coming to a
| full stop" with a special sign (a green arrow). So I think the
| speed limits are ok and it doesn't feel too different for me.
| What is not ok is the rampant ignorance towards laws. Red light
| and stop runners in bigger cities and such. Lots of bad drivers
| out there.
| flyingjoe wrote:
| Also Americans drive cars that have a much higher probability
| to kill pedestrians and will go everywhere by car (instead of
| walking, biking or taking public transport) due to their city
| architecture.
| kolinko wrote:
| It's more about the road width/construction than posted speed
| limit.
|
| If you have a road wide enough to drive 50 and try to post a
| speed limit of 30 drivers in all countries will complain.
|
| If you design a road so that driving above speed limit doesn't
| _feel_ safe, drivers will naturally stick to it.
|
| I can see it in city center Warsaw - we keep narrowing internal
| roads and the traffic naturally adjusts to that, whereas if a
| road is wider/longer/straighter people will drive faster
| regardless of the speed limit.
|
| In US there is a higher disconnect between the posted speed
| limit and the road width.
| kolinko wrote:
| It's more about the road width/construction than posted speed
| limit.
|
| If you have a road wide enough to drive 50 and try to post a
| speed limit of 30 drivers in all countries will complain.
|
| If you design a road so that driving above speed limit doesn't
| _feel_ safe, drivers will naturally stick to it.
|
| I can see it in city center Warsaw - we keep narrowing internal
| roads and the traffic naturally adjusts to that, whereas if a
| road is wider/longer/straighter people will drive faster
| regardless of the speed limit.
| kqr wrote:
| This is one of the things I find difficult about travelling
| abroad, particularly with children. I'm used to incredibly high
| safety standards, and when I'm in traffic in many other places in
| the world it feels like going back a few decades.
|
| Genuine question: we have a lot of research on how not to die in
| traffic (lower speeds around pedestrians, bicyclists stopped
| ahead of cars in intersections, children in backward facing
| seats, seatbelts in all seats in all types of vehicles,
| roundabouts in high-speed intersections, etc.)
|
| Why are more parts of the world not taking action on it? These
| are not very expensive things compared to the value many people
| assign to a life lost, even in expected value terms.
| lionkor wrote:
| What more action could be taken on it?
| wafflemaker wrote:
| Use the knowledge and implement the best practices.
| Croak wrote:
| For example make roads smaller in width.
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v6LIYQRglnM
| catlikesshrimp wrote:
| But large cars don't fit as comfortably /s
| rtpg wrote:
| If you look at this 2023 report[0] you can see the following
| sort of stats (page 34):
|
| between 2012-2023 there were the following evolution in the
| number of road deaths per year:
|
| - 60% drop in Lithuania
|
| - 50% drop in Poland
|
| - ~38% drop in Japan
|
| - 20% drop in Germany
|
| - 20% increase(!) in Israel, New Zealand and the US
|
| so abstractly, looking at what those countries did in the
| past 10 years and considering whether changes would work or
| be applicable for you (and maybe not doing whatever NZ or the
| US is doing)
|
| For Japan's case, they applied a lot of traffic calming[0].
| In particular, in 2011 Japan changed up rules to allow for
| traffic calming through a simple and cheap method: setting
| the speed limit to 30km/h in various spots. [1] has a summary
| of the report.
|
| Now, one thing I do know about Japan is that their
| qualification of road deaths is ... dishonest is strong but
| it's technical. If someone is in a car accident and survives
| a couple of days, but dies later from complications, that is
| not counted as a road fataility (IIRC it's a 24 hour window
| thing).
|
| I would like to point something out though. Between 2003 and
| 2016 car accidents nearly halved (from 940k to 540k). Between
| 2013 and 2023 fatalities according to their metrics dropped
| 40 percent.
|
| Things can be done
|
| [0]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Traffic_calming
|
| [1]: https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC6951391/ [0]: h
| ttps://www.oecd.org/content/dam/oecd/en/publications/report..
| .
| edm0nd wrote:
| given the date range, wouldn't these be heavily skewed due
| to COVID alone?
| Hilift wrote:
| You could create a dashboard.
|
| Most of the problem is human behavior. Look at the US, 40k
| annual fatalities.
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Motor_vehicle_fatality_rate_in.
| ..
|
| Many US states, counties, and municipalities have a formal
| "Vision Zero" program. It unfortunately hasn't resulted in
| much improvement in the US. Some think the pandemic had an
| effect.
|
| https://zerodeathsmd.gov/resources/crashdata/crashdashboard/
|
| https://www.visionzerosf.org/about/vision-zero-in-other-
| citi...
| kitten_mittens_ wrote:
| I agree vision zero hasn't been particularly effective in
| the US. In Boston, we have roads like Jamaicaway where the
| speed limit was lowered to 25mph and people regularly drive
| 50. Speed limits are functionally unenforced.
|
| Human behavior as a focal point of blame is skewered in a
| book that just came out.
|
| https://a.co/d/21guqjp argues that traffic engineering and
| design is what has resulted in the much higher death rate
| in the US than its peer countries. If lanes are wide (3.5m
| or larger), people will drive as fast as is enforced.
| potato3732842 wrote:
| They did it the way you people wanted in Worcester. They
| changed light timing and put in a bunch of curbs and
| narrow lanes and other calming measures in on a few key
| main roads
|
| You know what happened? With the main roads slowed in
| throughput large volumes of traffic went via the formerly
| "safe-ish for kids to play on" side streets creating a
| huge degradation in quality of life for affected
| neighborhoods.
|
| Get bent. You people are just this generation's Robert
| Moses. Always chasing some fanciful delusions of utopia
| without regard for the externalities.
| Symbiote wrote:
| Block the residential streets to through car traffic.
| Simple.
| erikerikson wrote:
| Things seem to be improving in Seattle:
|
| https://www.seattle.gov/documents/Departments/SDOT/VisionZe
| r...
|
| Implementation continues to roll out but a lot of the
| changes are long term and need behavioral shifts in the
| population that take a while to normalize.
| altairprime wrote:
| Critiquing the silence and harms done by inaction of the
| politicians who prioritize the safety of their elected seat
| over the safety of their voters -- patiently, continuously,
| and throughout their terms -- would be a useful step. Not to
| shame them, but to associate every preventable traffic death
| with their name and their words, actions, or absence thereof
| -- and doing so over a one-, two-, four-year period. Their
| reputation SEO would crater, and that's _before_ someone sets
| up citizen call panels which use the VaccinateCA methodology
| to simply call and ask if they have any comment on traffic
| death XYZ in their district that happened yesterday, for
| every traffic death, forever.
|
| As https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=44771331 points out:
| there is a cultural chasm between 'this sucks, oh well' and
| 'trying to do something about it'. It's certainly _easier_
| when, culturally, the expectation is agreed upon by the
| authorities you're calling. But the mindset is the same
| whether they like it or not: at the end of the day, the only
| way anything will change, is if you _normalize_ intolerance
| of inaction.
|
| There's no magic fix for that. It's a lot of slow and
| profitless journalism and social action that might be a
| decades-long uphill battle with no payoffs, no rewarding gold
| stars, for years. That's cultural change in a nutshell.
| andai wrote:
| >feels like going back a few decades
|
| In what sense?
|
| I feel like things were a lot nicer back then.
| yapyap wrote:
| well yeah you will be going "back in time" when travelling to
| poorer countries or even countries with higher gdp that dont
| take road safety that seriously or are car centric
| Symbiote wrote:
| This evening (in darkness) I walked for about 30 minutes
| through a fairly large American city and saw 5 cars driving
| without lights.
|
| It reminded me of significantly poorer countries
| andrepd wrote:
| > are not very expensive things compared to the value many
| people assign to a life lost, even in expected value terms.
|
| It's worse than that. It's not even that "it's not expensive",
| it actually _saves you money_ to take out lanes of traffic and
| making it into bike lanes, or running more and better public
| transport.
|
| (1) More people biking and fewer people sitting in cars, not to
| mention lower pollution, mean you _save_ money in healthcare
| for each dollar invested into bike infrastructure.
|
| https://cyclingsolutions.info/cost-benefit-of-cycling-infras...
| (When all factors are calculated, society gains DKK 4.79 per
| kilometer cycled, primarily due to the large health benefit,
| whereas it costs society DKK 5.29 for every kilometer driven by
| car).
|
| (2) In purely cold terms, killing e.g. a 30 year old represents
| a loss of productivity to the state in the order of millions.
| WHA8m wrote:
| Tangential: I'd love to vote for a political party whose only
| thing is to copy stuff that works in other neighbor countries.
| Everyone wants to reinvent the wheel or is too proud or
| something, idk.
| sc11 wrote:
| You're basically describing Volt Europa. They're having some
| success with that approach in Germany and the Netherlands,
| primarily at the municipality level
| WHA8m wrote:
| The last election must have been around the recent middle-
| east events (framing it purposefully neutral), because I
| remember I had some conflicting thoughts about their
| stance. I can't (honestly) remember if I voted for them
| then or not - but I strongly considered it, that much I
| know.
|
| Edit: Writing this out I think, I'm probably part of the
| problem. Voters should remember who they voted for and
| benchmark the results against their campaign pledge.
| Keeping politicians responsible with the little power we
| individuals have.
| yieldcrv wrote:
| Furthering the tangent, its annoying that parties' primary
| goal is to gain influence, but in the US one party's
| adherents pick a fairly random rights issue and vilify you if
| that's not your particular top cause at that random point in
| time. It would be one thing if that approach worked to gain
| influence, but it doesn't. Instead they then say "what!? All
| of our core demographics picked the party with character
| traits that are irrelevant to the job and that wasn't a _big
| enough_ turn off to prioritize our completely random not even
| opposite cause? you're the problem!" when they could focus on
| causes that individual people actually prioritize. form
| coalitions. gain influence.
|
| But, fortunately they are just losing supporters as people
| opt out of fealty to any party. Independents are the largest
| voting bloc now, although they have partisan leanings, they
| are underrepresented.
| kqr wrote:
| > its annoying that parties' primary goal is to gain
| influence
|
| Inevitable consequence of a representive democracy. Parties
| are chosen based on electability, which is merely a proxy
| for good policy. This means parties that don't optimise for
| electability at the cost of good policy will eventually be
| outcompeted by those that do.
|
| (It's for this reason Graeber sometimes jokingly (?) called
| representative democracy "elective aristocracy".)
| jijijijij wrote:
| 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 fixed.
|
| I presume politics isn't as lucrative in Finland and everything
| is smaller, fewer cooks.
| locallost wrote:
| I agree on cars, but pensions don't come from taxes.
| vander_elst wrote:
| Where do German pensions come from?
| tim333 wrote:
| Yeah, I think from some study in the UK road engineering is one
| of the cheapest ways to save lives. I think it was about PS200k
| / life. The UK has a decades history of road safety design and
| the like - I think you can't do these things that quickly. Like
| it's easy to design a road well on paper but hard to change it
| once you've built it.
|
| I saw them change the design on the Costa del Sol - the main
| traffic used to go through town centers - dangerous and slow.
| Now the town centers are mostly blocked off apart from local
| access and the traffic goes on a newly built motorway - much
| better, but it took a lot of construction work.
| throwawaye2456 wrote:
| > Now the town centers are mostly blocked off apart from
| local access and the traffic goes on a newly built motorway
|
| It's impressive that they managed that. In my country, that
| solution would probably not work politically because
| merchants in the town would be afraid to lose business due to
| less car traffic.
| Qwertious wrote:
| >because merchants in the town would be afraid to lose
| business due to less car traffic.
|
| This is true (merchants do have that fear) but the fear is
| unfounded, because far more traffic comes in from local
| foot traffic than car traffic, so business goes _up_ when
| the area pedestrianizes.
| ifwinterco wrote:
| Depending on where you're talking about, some countries just
| have a totally different culture and mindset, and the way roads
| are managed is just one side effect.
|
| There are many parts of the world where people are either very
| fatalistic ("sometimes people die, it's a fact of life") or
| genuinely believe that their fate is determined by factors
| other than probability
| muzani wrote:
| Where I live, gig riders will run red lights because it ends up
| increasing their pay for the day by about 30%. They're not
| being 'exploited' into starvation level pay; some make twice
| the salary of a factory worker. The ones working 13 hrs/day
| make the equivalent of a marketing director or bank manager.
|
| Most of the accidents I've been in have been people rushing to
| work or rushing to pick up relatives from the airport. One time
| a motorbike hit me square in the rear, flew over my car, hit
| the ground, and his leg was run over by a another motorbike.
| The car wasn't even moving; it was a traffic jam.
|
| The cars here make some noise when driver seat belts are not
| fastened. To get around this, some people buy some of these
| "alarm stopper clips" for a dollar so they don't have to wear
| their safety belts.
|
| I'm always frustrated at how exceptionally stupid some of these
| accidents are. I'm surprised some cities are getting to zero
| fatalities just by making laws; most of the fatalities here are
| from people finding ways to break the laws they disagree with,
| or people who care more about being late to work than arrested.
| catlikesshrimp wrote:
| I am glad about gig workers in your country. If we are
| talking about uber employees (drivers and eats) in costa
| rica, they make minimum , considering expenses like social
| security.
|
| Disclaimer: A couple years ago, the state forced uber to
| contribute to their social security under terms I haven't
| reviewed. But it is not paid in full.
| crooked-v wrote:
| > some make twice the salary of a factory worker
|
| Keep in mind vehicle depreciation and maintenance costs,
| though.
| crowbahr wrote:
| The cost of a delivery ebike can be recouped in a month or
| two.
| Aurornis wrote:
| You don't even need a financial incentive for people to start
| normalizing traffic violations.
|
| Once enough people start doing something and it becomes
| impossible to ignore the fact that nobody is getting cited
| for it, the behavior spreads.
|
| I remember traveling to a European country where drivers were
| angrily honking their horns at me for stopping at red lights
| (with no cross traffic) and stop signs.
|
| After one close call where I was nearly rear ended because I
| came to a stop, I started running the stop signs (with a slow
| down) too.
|
| Back home in my US city there's a road near my house where
| the average speed creeps up over the course of a year until
| it gets so bad that a handful of drivers feel emboldened to
| go 30mph over the speed limit and weave through traffic.
|
| Then the police will come out and make a show of pulling
| people over randomly for a few months and the behavior resets
| closer to the speed limit.
|
| It really only takes 1 in 100 bad drivers believing they
| won't be pulled over to make a road much more dangerous.
| jamesblonde wrote:
| In many european countries, a right-turn can be a red light
| (green for pedestrians crossing) and if there are no
| pedestrians around, you can run the red light. That's prob
| what was happening.
| PeterStuer wrote:
| 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.
| j1elo wrote:
| I wanted to read opinions about the cost in time that public
| transport takes, but it hasn't been commented much. Time is
| precious (albeit not more than a life! that I agree for sure),
| and you cannot save it for later, so the problem I have with
| public transport is the enormous loss of time it is for everyone
| -- unless the planning is almost flawless. So first we had
| distances effectively "shortened" with the rise of private
| transportation, and now we go back to widening them again, in
| terms of time and practicality of covering longer distances in
| the modern day-to-day life.
|
| Here in my city, even though the public transport is already
| considered among the best of Europe, and you only hear praise
| about how well connected everything is... (so you wouldn't expect
| any radical improvements any time soon) on a Sunday I still take
| ~16 minutes to cover 14 km (8.7 miles) by car to meet my partner,
| while the same distance by p.t. is <checks on Google Maps...>
| 1h20m. So yeah, no thanks.
|
| I picked 2 points at random in Helsinki, separated by 14 km, and
| Gmaps says it's 24 mins by car or 48 mins by public transport, so
| while it's already double, it feels much more reasonable.
|
| Still there is the problem of reducing ability to have a
| lifestyle that implies many movements. E.g. after visiting my
| partner I went another 25 km (15.5 miles) to have dinner with my
| family. On the way back to my home I stopped by a utility store
| to buy some stuff. All those trips combined would have meant too
| many hours spent on a subway or bus (checked it: 2h50m _and that
| 's giving up on the shopping stop_), but combined by car were a
| mere 1h15m.
|
| I get the people who say "I don't have any use for a car, my city
| is phenomenal", but I also think a subset of those people might
| simply have assumed (deliberately or not) the limitations it
| implies, and would possibly achieve more things in their day to
| day if transporting themselves was a quicker process.
|
| Points of view and different opinions are welcome :)
| OtherShrezzing wrote:
| Feels like performing this assessment on a Sunday morning is
| weighting it massively in favour of the car. Busses run a
| reduced service in most cities, and traffic is far lighter on a
| weekend than during the week.
|
| What do those times look like on a Wednesday evening during the
| commute home?
| j1elo wrote:
| I agree. But for high amount of trips done in a single day,
| I'd have to use my weekends for sharing examples, as on
| weekdays the planning is much different due to work. I also
| obviously know that traffic is dense at certain times, so
| it's not that roads are always a walk on the park, but for me
| it's more a matter of knowing the routines and schedules of
| the city, and using my private transport in the appropriate
| times is immensely beneficial for the things I usually want
| to do in a day.
|
| On a Wednesday, too many people try to go in a single
| direction in the morning, and in the opposite direction in
| the evening, going to/from work, so depending on where one
| lives, it's clearly better to use the Subway.
|
| Although with later crisis and inflation and cost reduction,
| the public transport has been a bit in a downfall with less
| frequencies, and I've started to notice that the service is
| worsening; some mornings the trains are coming fully packed
| of sweaty people, so the experience must be pushing some
| people to use their cars and join the masses, for sure...
| projektfu wrote:
| Time is precious, so I would rather spend it reading a good
| book or playing with my daughter on the train for an hour, than
| driving my car for 45 minutes.
| swader999 wrote:
| 30 km/hr residential speed limits, narrow streets and a culture
| of safety conscious people seems to be the main contributors to
| this. Well done!
| knolan wrote:
| Meanwhile here in Ireland the culture is going the opposite
| direction. There is a clear lack of roads policing here and a
| recent report has confirmed this[1] with many Gardai simply not
| interested in doing their job. Our police force is massively
| under resourced and moral is in the gutter.
|
| Meanwhile we have endless PR events "pleading" and "urging"
| motorists to drive safely, many of which have photo ops with
| vehicles parked illegally on footpaths. All run by a Road Safety
| Authority government agency that is utterly incompetent and only
| seems interested in handing out high viz jackets to school kids
| and blaming them for being killed by motorists glued to their
| phones.
|
| Which brings me to my pet hate, the utter contempt shown by Irish
| motorists for those around them, especially pedestrian and
| cyclist spaces. It's extremely common for cars to be fully parked
| up on a footpath even if a parking space is in sight. I've had to
| dodge van drivers driving down the footpath on the Main Street of
| our capital city because they are too lazy to use the loading bay
| 50m down the street. This behaviour is accepted by almost
| everyone. Once a neighbour came around the corner with two wheels
| of her SUV on the footpath (presumably so she could mount the
| dipped kerb and park as close to her front door as possible). I
| had to jump back. I asked her, pleaded even, to not drive on the
| footpath. Apparently that was rude and she was highly offended.
|
| Fuck cars.
|
| [1] https://www.rte.ie/news/ireland/2025/0731/1526401-garda-
| crow...
| ane wrote:
| Never been more scared in my life when I drove through narrow
| country roads in Ireland
| knolan wrote:
| Where I grew up in rural Ireland there was a haulage company
| based down a narrow single track road. You'd take your life
| in your hands going down that road at the best of times,
| never mind meeting a speeding articulated lorry. Eventually
| the county council made them build their own access to the
| main road.
|
| The problem isn't usually the narrow roads however, it's the
| drivers everywhere who know there are no consequences for
| their behaviour.
| tsoukase wrote:
| Driving is an extreme responsibility. You carry a 1tn metal
| object at high speeds a few metres away from human bodies.
| Accidents happen for a dozen reasons, speed being the most
| important.
|
| All governments should take drastic measures to reduce car
| accidents. In my countrynthere are still street corners and parts
| where fatal accidents happen all the time. They could start from
| there.
| kccqzy wrote:
| I do this after every long drive: I reflect and think about
| whether there were any near-misses or potentially unsafe
| actions during the drive and I write them down. Things like:
| that one time I forgot to look over the shoulder when I changed
| lanes and the car behind honked at me; or that one time I
| passed a bicyclist with only 2 ft separation. Reflecting on
| these afterwards makes me more aware of how I can improve my
| own driving safety.
| johnklos wrote:
| I was there last week and was amazed at how little traffic there
| is everywhere. Sure, many people are off for the summer, but even
| at the more touristy places and even at the airport you weren't
| waiting for cars.
|
| Public transit was simple and quick, even with tram lines closed
| for construction. The whole experiece shows what's possible when
| you make public transit actually usable. I'd love to live in a
| city that does this.
| pranavm27 wrote:
| I think for cities with more than 5mil population, the best way
| to avoid road accident would be to restrict human driving in
| cities and allow only autopilots.
|
| Might be more impactful and faster than infra. Though infra has
| to improve as well atleast on major roads.
| 1970-01-01 wrote:
| I wish we did root cause analysis for major successes. Just as in
| a major disaster, it's important to detail the key reasons behind
| the event so lessons are learned, and the drivers remain
| (un)changed.
| margorczynski wrote:
| Most accidents in cities are simple fender benders. The worst are
| on the roads that interconnect different cities and major areas -
| especially if they're two-way roads.
| vondur wrote:
| Pretty impressive. I doubt you'd find a comparably sized US city
| with zero traffic deaths in a year.
| weberer wrote:
| Someone above posted that Jersey City also achieved that in
| 2022.
| EasyMark wrote:
| That's neat, I wonder how they compare on average over a
| couple decades.
| yason wrote:
| It's still kind of all relative.
|
| There's a lot of criticism by the local people against Helsinki
| being too car-friendly. Pedestrian crossings deemed dangerous
| being simply removed rather than putting traffic lights to tame
| the cars instead. Large multi-lane roads right outside the
| densest city centre. Too much space allocated for cars vs
| pedestrians and other light traffic in the city centre area where
| the latter outnumber the former by 10x.
|
| The only thing that directly supports the zero-death record is
| the lower speed limits. They used to be 50 km/h some decades ago,
| then most of the city centre was lowered to 40 km/h and now in
| the last 10-15 years there's been a proliferation of 30 km/h
| zones all over the dense areas where there are a lot of
| pedestrians. This is absolutely good, and given traffic and red
| lights the average speed was less than that anyway -- it's just
| that now the drivers no longer have that small stretch of road to
| accelerate to high speeds towards the next red lights.
|
| In the centre, lower speed limits are perfect. Helsinki could've
| reached zero deaths earlier too if it wasn't for some random
| truck making a turn and running over a kid or something (I think
| that was the one traffic death in the previous year, or the one
| before that).
|
| I'd still like to see fewer square metres allocated for cars,
| elevated pedestrian crossings, roads with less lanes (you can
| turn 4 lanes into 3 with bike lanes both ways).
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