Helsinki just went a full year without a single traffic death

MoonWalk

Maybe they implemented the death penalty for texting while driving.

cyberax

Meanwhile, pedestrian deaths are up in all the large coastal US cities that went full-on with the "Zero Vision" policies. Seattle, Portland, SF enshittified their roads, limited the traffic speed, choked the streets with bike lanes, drank all the KoolAid. Yet the deaths _increased_.

RandallBrown

I can't say I'd be excited about 19 mph speed limits enforced by cameras, but I don't doubt it would work. I'd love for my city to just focus on making other forms of transportation more appealing. More bus lanes, more (properly designed) bike lanes, etc.

suzdude

It is sad how little U.S. voters seem to care about anyone but themselves. Near everything the Finns are dong could be done in here, but too many voices would complain about the cost, the paternalism, or how they might be slightly inconvenienced. Those seem like harder challenges then the changes themselves.

philip1209

Oslo has been doing this for years. I wrote a blog post about my learnings there - "Engineering over enforcement": > Enforcement philosophy is rooted in the idea that behavior can be controlled by threatening punishments. Engineering philosophy believes that infrastructure can be designed to incentivize desired behavior. When Oslo sought to reduce pedestrian deaths, it turned to engineers. > [ . . .] Intersections are one small example where philosophies can diverge. But, as I learned in Oslo, engineers have a whole toolkit of methods to make cities safer. Bumping out a curb slows down turning speeds and protects pedestrians. Bike lanes can be safer by being raised above the street instead of relying on a painted barrier. Limiting how far cars can see ahead of them slows them down. Behavior can be designed rather than just enforced, and in aggregate these small changes can make a city safer. https://www.contraption.co/engineering-over-enforcement/

mianos

Masses of speed cameras and a 30kph speed limit. We have this here in Sydney, but it's mixed 30/40/50 between every intersection and most of the major intersections have red light cameras as well as speed cameras. It's godammned utterly horrible to drive in. Most people I know, who when they were young never got a ticket, have now a few fines. If you try and drive somewhere unfamiliar here you are pretty much guaranteed to get some sort of ticket as half the roads are one way, and you can't turn into the other half for random reasons. Oh, most left hand red arrows in the city, start red when the main light goes green, and they have cameras on them too. You can literally see the camera lights flashing non stop when you walk along. Add to this, zero rules for pedestrians, no one waits for the lights if they can see a break in the traffic.

puskavi

whole city has been made incredibly painful to drive your own car, so no wonder. still not worth it, as public transport can only get you so far

jacquesm

The Helsinki bike infrastructure is even better than the Dutch one, if you spend time there, get a bike!

gnfargbl

On the other side of the coin, a wide-scale introduction of 20mph speed limits in Wales has been generally unpopular. This is despite a relatively small (but real) reduction in casualty figures that came with the change. https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/c93jvpjwdezo

fnord77

funny the "vision zero" attempts in SF have actually caused traffic deaths to go up

rhet0rica

I am reminded of a certain Mitchell and Webb skit that suggests the absence of deaths by drowning in a county indicates perhaps too much public funding has gone into preventing them: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fqYyxvM85zU

tl2do

Contrast with Japan, my country, where bike accidents have risen 3 years straight and now make up 20%+ of all traffic incidents. Japan's response: heavier fines. Helsinki's: redesign the system. Big difference in philosophy.

BXLE_1-1-BitIs1

Not yet discussed is that European countries have standards mandating lower hoods that are not as hazardous to pedestrians in a collision. Getting hit by a pickup or high profile SUV is much more likely to kill you than a compact. Adding bull bars to the front virtually guarantees a fatal head injury to a child.

SilverElfin

These data free claims don’t ever honestly talk about how they simply made driving so inefficient and bad on purpose so that the other, slower modes, don’t look as bad. Increasing travel times and inconvenience isn’t a win and safetyism is irrational. If you can’t make fast driving safer you haven’t achieved anything really. And as for vision zero - you’ll never get perfect safety and it isn’t worth the tradeoffs.

dang

Related. Others? Helsinki records zero traffic deaths for full year - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=44736025 - July 2025 (652 comments)

owenversteeg

This is certainly a good thing, but for all the Americans self-flagellating in the comments, it is mostly because Helsinki is wealthy, tiny (600k people), and doesn’t drive that much - mostly because of its high population density. Compare it to wealthy US states and you’ll see similar numbers: Mass has 4 deaths per billion km, RI/MN/NH have 5, Switzerland/Sweden has 3, Germany has 4, Finland has 5, France has 6. If you compare instead per 100k people, ignoring distance driven, that’s 6 in RI/NY/MA, 2 in Sweden, 3 in Finland, 5 in France - and 3 in NYC.

khelavastr

Limiting drunk driving is huge