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Helsinki records zero traffic deaths for full year

(www.helsinkitimes.fi)
1163 points DaveZale | 3 comments | 30 Jul 25 16:08 UTC | HN request time: 0.001s | source
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kqr ◴[03 Aug 25 07:56 UTC] No.44774929[source]▶
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.

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1. tim333 ◴[03 Aug 25 13:32 UTC] No.44776480[source]▶
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 £200k / 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.

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2. throwawaye2456 ◴[03 Aug 25 18:41 UTC] No.44778678[source]▶
> 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.

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3. Qwertious ◴[03 Aug 25 21:12 UTC] No.44779869[source]▶
>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.