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Helsinki records zero traffic deaths for full year

(www.helsinkitimes.fi)
1163 points DaveZale | 2 comments | 30 Jul 25 16:08 UTC | HN request time: 0s | source
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PaulRobinson ◴[02 Aug 25 20:49 UTC] No.44771331[source]▶
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.

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graemep ◴[02 Aug 25 21:18 UTC] No.44771583[source]▶
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.

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sophia01 ◴[02 Aug 25 22:12 UTC] No.44772070[source]▶
> 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

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throwaway9832[dead post] ◴[03 Aug 25 01:17 UTC] No.44773300{3}[source]▶
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1. atoav ◴[03 Aug 25 03:35 UTC] No.44773890{4}[source]▶
> People drive more carefully on frozen roads.

I am from the alps, with my share of knowledge about frozen roads. I would add to that: "People drive more carefully on frozen roads, *if they are not used to frozen roads and/or know roads are frozen.*"

For point one: In Austria I have seen (local) cars drive 30 km/h over the speed limit on the Autobahn while it was snowing at sub zero, with exactly the same (too close) breaking distance to others. In my experience for many people used to snow/ice the speed limit is still the orientation for many during ice/snow. If anything I'd expect the increase in defensive driving to be offset by the increase in accidents due to bad view, longer breaking distances, etc.

As for the second point: In Austria the second it snows or rainfall happens at subzero amadas of snow/ice clearing vehicles hit the road, yet during my lifetime I experienced black ice multiple times. To those who don't know what this is, it is a invisible layer of extremely smooth ice coating the road, which can happen of air + road temperatures and rainfall just align in the worst way possible. The resulting road is so slippy as if god had toggled off the "simulate friction"-checkbox. I remember a time where no-one could leave my village because they couldn't get up that one hill on foot. I managed to get to school by stomping through half a meter of snow next to the road and slipped 10 times on the way to the school while wittnessing multiple (minor) car crashes. I have seen such conditions happen on the Autobahn as well and the results are not pretty.

Zero traffic casualties in a cold climate therefore has to mean absolutely lightning fast road maintenance and/or stellar information on the current road conditions and is certainly an extremely impressive feat. I can't imagine this is possible without adaptive speed limits (and rhe infrastructure that is needed to pull that off). The Finns have reason to be proud (aside from them being really nice people in my personal experience).

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2. prmoustache ◴[03 Aug 25 07:49 UTC] No.44774898[source]▶
I am familiar with black ice hving lived a large part of my life in Switzerland. Black ice usually involve having temperatures swinging around zero + rain. It doesn't happen if you are at -10°C.

Also. Finland has a long history of maintaining both dirt roads all year and ice roads in the winter on top of body of water so I guess drivers are much more used to them. It is also a relatively flat country.