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philip1209
mooreds
AKA "make the right things easy" and "build sensible defaults" rather than "all the responsibility is the individuals".
philip1209
there's a reason speedbumps are called "silent policemen"
Scoundreller
I call them SUV/pickup truck sellers or reasonably-sized-vehicle killers.
Alternatively, greenhouse-gas bumps.
Dunno which genius in my town put them on a road riddled with potholes, poorly filled road cuts and marsh-related unevenness.
fnord77
if you live next to one they're not very silent.
rectang
How depraved, to solve problems without inflicting punishment.
RickS
This is the way. It's maddening that we use the term "speed limit" for what is better understood as a "speed request".
cyberax
[flagged]
efebarlas
I want to learn more about “it did not work in the us… excess deaths”
Do you have a link handy for this?
RickS
https://www.elkandelk.com/washington/seattle-car-accident-st...
Since it started in 2015, accidents are down 50%, but deaths up 90%. This analysis leaves a lot to be desired. I didn't see per-capita stats (Seattle had massive growth during a lot of those years), and we don't really enforce traffic laws at all anyway, so IDK what to think without digging in further.
cyberax
Seattle traffic deaths: https://wtsc.wa.gov/dashboards/fatalities-dashboard/ - select "Seattle" in the city filter and "Pedestrian" in the filter below.
This article has SF pedestrian deaths by year: https://www.sfchronicle.com/projects/2026/pedestrian-fatalit...
For Portland you need to check their police news archives, I couldn't find a dashboard. Here are the data from 2016 and 2024: https://www.portland.gov/transportation/vision-zero/document... (13 pedestrian deaths), https://www.portland.gov/transportation/vision-zero/document... (22 pedestrian deaths). The population growth was 9% between 2016 and 2024.
I don't have an explanation for these increases, and there are no good papers that explore this in depth. I need to write a meta-research paper: "On the lack of research on urbanism-related policy failures".
Scoundreller
I'm confused: what didn't work in Seattle/SF/Portland?
Enforcement didn't work because people won't follow the law anyway or engineering didn't work because people tried to drive through the obstacles or approach them with the same speed and smashed/smooshed more?
fnord77
SF tried a multi-front approach called "Vision Zero". I think initially deaths went down for a couple years but then ticked back up. No, people aren't (usually) driving through obstacles.
cyberax
Engineering didn't work. Seattle/SF/Portland vigorously attempted to implement the Zero Vision recommendations. The war-on-cars in other words.
And if the problem was in enforcement in the first place, then why do all the engineering that actively worsens the traffic?
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fnord77
not sure why you're getting downvoted. Traffic deaths in SF definitely went up after "Vision Zero" was implemented
ggggffggggg
As someone living in SF since before it was implemented, getting the causality right and excluding cofounders seems VERY hard. Things have changed so much here since the early 00s.
jibal
> It did not work in the US
What didn't?
> and resulted
Correlation is not causation.
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.
skrrtww
When I was 12, I watched a redneck in a pickup truck try to race the light rail downtown and cut across the road in front of it, only to get T-boned by the railcar against a nearby station. It was the middle of the day and the guy was definitely sober.
People in the U.S. are simply constructed differently, and as a result I think are unfortunately immune to a lot of the subtle forces that generally help to improve safety in other civilized societies.
jasonfrost
Ask yourself if calling him a redneck offers your story anything or if you're just using it as a slur
jibal
People? You mentioned one person (who won a Darwin Award--hopefully he hadn't already bred).
P.S.
As for the absurd response, the assertion was
> People in the U.S. are simply constructed differently
and a handwaving reference to an intercity train system from someone who can't even be bothered to make any sort of argument does not establish the point.
SauntSolaire
Look up the brightline rail system in Florida if you want a lot more examples.
autoexec
I don't doubt that US voters won't want to limit speeds to 18mph and fill our roads with speed cameras to enforce it.
I'm guessing that if average commute time in Helsinki was anywhere near what it is in the US they'd probably want to get to their destinations a little faster.
We could probably get away with it if we also redesigned every city and suburb and invested massive amounts of money into public transportation to get something comparable and after all of that I'm sure that many people would probably be happy with what we ended up with, but the disruption of every person's lives in the process would be extremely painful.
We're better off focusing on making sure that new developments are better designed than bulldozing over people's homes and businesses in order to redesign everything we already have.
pixl97
Greed is good! Anything that's not greed is socialism and we can't have that now, can we.
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.
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.
seizethecheese
I’ll point out the obvious that this is entirely based on perspective. An individual whose dominant mode of transportation is not driving would probably disagree.
tfyoung
You know what makes bike lanes more appealing and safer (amongst other things)? Not being next to speeding cars.
maest
Why do you need to go faster in a city center?
RandallBrown
You probably don't need to go faster in the city center, but you need to get to the city center somehow.
maest
The limit is active in city centre and residential areas only.
jacquesm
You don't need more speed, you need better planning.
andrewaylett
Edinburgh doesn't enforce its 20mph zones, I follow them anyway. And I don't believe I actually make progress through the city any less quickly than drivers who speed, because it's rare that I'm not in any case sitting behind the speeders at the next red light.
Arterial roads are normally still 30mph, and it's not a huge city so it doesn't take that long to get from the outskirts to the centre. Or when it does, it's not because of low speed limits.
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.
enaaem
Amsterdam also reduced many roads from 50 to 30 kmph. Accidents have reduced by 11% and travel time has only increased 1-5%. That is less than one minute on a 20 minute trip.
https://openresearch.amsterdam/nl/page/124453/onderzoeksrapp...
wileydragonfly
A 40% reduction in speed only causes a 5% increase in travel time? Are the majority of car trips spent sitting at stop lights??
owenversteeg
I haven’t looked into this specific case, but most of the time the limiting factor is other traffic. You’re not traveling at full speed the whole time. If a lower speed adds 10 minutes to the average trip, but it reduces 9 minutes’ worth of traffic, you’ve only lost net one minute. A lower speed limit will often reduce traffic because the speed-up-slow-down behavior is reduced.
Personally, I have driven around the Netherlands a fair bit and this sort of thing does seem to be roughly true for the median case. It can definitely be annoying when the streets are empty, though. For those journeys you’re obviously losing a fair bit of time.
enaaem
That’s because within cities, junctions are the bottleneck and not the max speed.
autoexec
Maybe people got so frustrated by having to drive at a snails pace that it became preferable and/or faster to just use other modes of transportation which cut down on traffic improving travel times?
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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.
cucumber3732842
All of the people who self flagellate on these topics know that the wealthy urban Northeast has similar stats to Europe on any given issue.
They're self flagellating because they can't just come out and say what "those people off in Iowa, yeah, well F them" or something along those lines.
chneu
I'm American and I find the way Americans misuse words, or completely misrepresent a concept, so we don't have to accept our failings to be really short sighted.
Americans lie to ourselves constantly to perpetuate our mistakes. We twist the meaning of words so we don't have to admit how selfish/shitty we can be.
You're right. Most Americans won't come out and say what they mean, so they'll dance around it. That's how so many racist Americans can say they aren't racist.
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.
cyberrock
I'm not sure where I saw it but I think I read that most recent increases in Japanese bicycle accidents are from bicycles turning right. It seems like the push to make bicycles use the road more (to reduce pedestrian vs bicycle accidents, which are still rising) had the unintentional consequence of making cyclists more likely to perform right turns like cars and motorcycles. However the road law actually requires bicycles to do two-stage turns, which they were more likely to do when they were riding on the sidewalk, and what cyclists in Amsterdam and Copenhagen recommend doing. So, I mean, sure, more cycling paths would improve the situation by making cyclists perform 2 stage turns, but there's nothing really stopping us from doing it now.
angiolillo
For many years I commuted by bike in a city that prioritized driving convenience, speed, and free parking over safety and sense of place. I tried convince my neighbors that we ought to make different tradeoffs to improve safety and I volunteered at and financially supported various transportation safety groups.
Ultimately I gave up and moved to a place that was a better fit and my only regret is not doing so sooner. I still believe that it's possible for any city to eliminate traffic deaths, but I no longer believe that this obligates every city to make the tradeoffs this requires.
It reminds me of the Paul Graham essay [1] about the benefits of surrounding yourself with people who care about the things you care about:
> It's not so much that you do whatever a city expects of you, but that you get discouraged when no one around you cares about the same things you do.
hn_user82179
Very curious what city you moved to if you don't mind sharing! I live in a small city that in its downtown proper has good bike infrastructure but everywhere else it is terrible and the broader area is very anti-cyclist unfortunately.
angiolillo
My situation was similar. I lived in a small city that trumpeted their aspirational walking and biking infrastructure but did nothing to change a driving culture and police force that were actively and physically hostile to anyone on foot or bike.
We initially moved to Arlington, MA. The Minuteman Bikeway runs right through the center of town and it's packed with commuters in the morning heading into Cambridge or Boston. It's also adjacent to Cambridge and Somerville where more than one in ten commutes are by bike, and fewer than half are by car.[1]
We eventually ended up moving slightly further out and sacrificing some walkability/bikeability for lower housing costs. But the bike racks at our schools are well-used even in the winter and I'm never the only cyclist on the road. There's also a growing network of rail trails like the Bruce Freeman and the Mass Central that are bringing out a lot more recreational cyclists. And contrary to their reputation, I've found Massachusetts drivers basically respectful of other road users, at least insofar as they generally give a wide berth and I've never had a MA driver throw something at me or do a punishment pass.
If you're curious about moving to a bike-friendly town in MA more generally, see https://www.redfin.com/blog/most-bikeable-cities-in-massachu... and peopleforbikes.org ratings.
[1] In 2024 Cambridge had ~11% bike commute mode share https://www.cambridgema.gov/-/media/Files/CDD/Transportation... and in 2021 Somerville had ~15% bike commute mode share https://s3.amazonaws.com/somervillema-live/s3fs-public/HSH_5...
Markoff
Helsinki has population 690K as they mention in the article, while Berlin with 5 deaths 3.7M and also many people commuting, so it's not really that big of an achievement.
Also the article is missing their definition of traffic death, here in Prague is basically impossible, even if cars killed nobody people jump in front of the trams and buses (let alone suicides in subway thanks to no platform doors) and limiting trams and everyone to like 20-30kmph would make transportation even worse than it is.
Plus all European countries define traffic death differently, if car will hit you and you won't die immediately you won't be counted as traffic death if you die after 2, 4 weeks or more depending on country, so I would question all these stats since I find it hard to imagine there can be zero traffic deaths in 700K city.
EDIT: Gemini says: "In Norway, a road traffic death is defined as any person killed immediately or dying within 30 days of a road traffic accident, including drivers, passengers, cyclists, and pedestrians."
So if you will be in coma for a while and die after one month you are not traffic death anymore. Though it seems France, Germany, Czechia and maybe US ("While NHTSA uses a 30-day cutoff for "traffic fatalities", the National Safety Council (NSC) uses a 1-year cutoff for "motor-vehicle-related deaths," which can lead to higher, more comprehensive total fatality numbers.") uses same definition.
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.
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
owenversteeg
Of course, in that sketch, David is right!
dang
Related. Others?
Helsinki records zero traffic deaths for full year - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=44736025 - July 2025 (652 comments)
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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/