Helsinki records zero traffic deaths for full year

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.

> not about urban planning genius or Scandinavian magic

Fewer cars IS THE MAGIC and fewer cars IS GREAT URBAN planning.

Yes. In the future there will be no cars and no deaths related to them. We just live in the 1800' of our time.