Helsinki records zero traffic deaths for full year

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.

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.