Helsinki has not recorded a single traffic fatality in the past 12 months, city and police officials confirmed this week.
The city’s most recent fatal accident occurred in early July 2024 on Keinulaudantie in the city’s Kontula district.
Authorities are calling the situation exceptional.
“A lot of factors contributed to this, but speed limits are one of the most important,” said Roni Utriainen, a traffic engineer with the city’s Urban Environment Division.
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According to Utriainen, more than half of Helsinki’s streets now have a speed limit of 30 km/h. Fifty years ago, that proportion featured 50 km/h limits.
Earlier this summer, Helsinki decided to lower speed limits near schools to 30 km/h, a measure that is set to take effect as the academic year begins.
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If I understand him correctly, it’s not about removing speed limits, but by making the driver enforce the speed limit without rules. Like, people drive slower (on average) when the street is narrow.
Yeah and the free market will regulate itself… Maybe most people will self regulate but most people don’t get into accidents, you only need a minority to be assholes for a crash to happen.
Regulation helps everyone.
I think you are misunderstanding.
Divided highways in Finland have speed limits of 100-120km/h.
If you build a new road that looks like a divided highway, but you put up 30km/h signage… People are going to drive 120km/h. They aren’t going to drive 30km/h just because it is the posted speed limit. They are going to drive the 120km/h that they drive on every other road that looks like this one.
Major roads in urban areas of Finland have speed limits of 50km/h.
If you build a new road that looks like a major road, and you put up 30km/h signs… people are going to drive 50km/h.
Here’s the important part that you’re not quite following: Residential roads in Finland are 30km/h. If you build a road that looks like a residential road, and you put up 50km/h signs… people are going to drive 30km/h, not 50.
Nobody is saying we should get rid of the speed limits. Yes, we certainly do need them. What we are saying is that people are going to drive at the speeds that the road design supports, regardless of the posted speed limit. If you actually want people to drive 30km/h, your road needs to look and feel like a 30km/h road.
Anecdotal, but I lived in a rather large allotment, established in the 1960s. We had no pavement markings on the blacktop. No edge lines, no center lines. Everyone drove 20-25mph throughout. Then, the city decided to paint solid centerlines and edge lines on the primary access road through the allotment. Now, everyone drives 35-45mph on that part, while they’re still at 20-25mph in the rest of the allotment. The pavement markings make the exact same road feel like a primary artery rather than a residential side street.
If you wanted to accomplish the reverse, you could withhold the centerline markings and paint crosswalks instead. Paradoxically, two-way stops or even “yield” signs can (in certain cases) reduce speeds more than 4-way stops.
I’m not saying I support that idea, but that thus is what I think the idea is.
What I think is that we need both: tighter speed limits, and less inviting roads. Also ban on small dick middle age cars.
I have an idea of what cars you are referring to and that sounds like a US problem my friend :)
I mean, Ferrari, Bugatti, Porche, Mazzaratti, Lamborghini are all European cars. It’s not only in the US.
Sorry, but your spelling was too funny and I have to nitpick. Porsche and Maserati*
I said funny because you might want to look up what “porche” means in colloquial Italian.
Indeed these are generally super/sports car, and you see very few of them in Europe, except for exceptionally rich places. Even in Europe though you see many SUV in cities and I started seeing more and more huge tanks (like pickup-trucks), which I think are more common in US right now.
My bad. You can tell how much I don’t like (these) cars. Which language did I spell wrong? Is it still German?
I distinguish between SUVs that are big and stupid but are not severely bad to these stupid Dodge RAM like cars that rarely have an excuse for them.
But yes, people get addicted to big cars that 90% of the time don’t justify the cost (in multiple terms)
Porsche is German I believe. Maserati is Italian.
Yeah indeed they are not comparable. I have a huge pickup truck in my building and is on another scale. The problem is also that it’s a vicious circle, the more you see cars this big on the road, the more you don’t want to be the only one with what looks like a go-kart in comparison.
Oh, I was thinking of giant trucks, I don’t think the general middle age people has Ferrari money though.
Jajaja I didn’t think of them…
I believe that both should be banned from the heart if cities. For pretty much the same reasons.
(Honestly, from city centres, I think that all cars should be bannes, but I’m extremist in that sense)
I still don’t get the appeal to ban supercars in cities, I feel like I’ve seen like 2 of them in my whole life. Where do you live that their presence is prominent enough to ask for a ban?
If that ever becomes a law, I would really like to see what’s the official legal way to describe that type of car.