City of Helsinki goes a full year without a traffic death

Smarter design and better enforcement
Street design has also played a key role. Pedestrian and cycling infrastructure has been significantly upgraded in recent years. In addition, cooperation with traffic police has intensified and more traffic cameras and automated enforcement systems have been introduced.
"Public transport in Helsinki is excellent, which reduces car use, and with it, the number of serious accidents," Utriainen noted.

Yep, that would do it.

Especially road design (for example avoiding those deadly 4-way intersections the US loves so much) as well enforcing speed limits around danger areas like schools, and most importantly, reduce the number of cars by providing better alternatives...

An impressive feat.

Also parking in the city centre is expensive as hell. It's cheaper and more convenient to park for free further out and take a train in.
It's multifactorial. Cities like Helsinki and Amsterdam are poster children, but Europe also has plenty of areas (especially suburbs) that are as car-dependent as equivalent US cities.
However traffic deaths remain much lower than in the US thanks to less idiotically-designed streets.
Step 0, by far the biggest impact-to-cost ratio, is narrow the damn streets. Take the biggest road-legal vehicle allowed on that street, mark down the path of travel, and put some plastic bollards a few inches on either side. Watch as everybody instinctively slows down even though the flow of traffic is not even impeded or redirected in any way. This policy - by itself - doesn't even reduce car dependence! If you do it as part of the regular road repair schedule, it's literally free.
America's wide-ass roads constantly astound me with their profound stupidity. There's literally no tangible gain, and so many downsides to public safety. I understand (though I strongly disagree with) the usual refrains for why the US is car-centric, but making streets too wide is simply inexcusable and unconscionable.
- I agree with you, it is multifactorial.
  An additional aspect, IMO, is that Europeans in general are much better educated when it comes to driving rules and driving in general. Rigorous theoretical and practical exams, expensive mandatory classes, and actual enforcement that, not rarely, will take away a driver's license for serious/repeated offenses. This causes people to approach driving as a privilege, not some god given right.
  Anecdote time - I actually have a couple of American neighbors, they're a couple in their late 60s/early 70s, probably. It pains me to see their gorgeous BMW X5 gaining new dents almost single time they go out with it... :(
- put some plastic bollards
  No. No. Nooooooooo no!
  Fuck those abominations.
In addition, cooperation with traffic police has intensified and more traffic cameras and automated enforcement systems have been introduced.
Man, if I had a dollar for everytime I've read someone from Australia write online: "they're just revenue raising!!!" I'd be rich.
We're not as brain-dead as the Americans with cars, but still not great.
reduce the number of cars by providing better alternatives…
Too bad cycle nuts stop after "cars" and politicians don't care either.

Ah, 🤓👆
But did the lack of deaths make them any money? 🤔

Take that, communists.

Yes, they saved the businesses having to train new employees to replace the dead ones.
- I mean, that's already going a step too far in the logic, the non-dead people continuing to live and work literally makes money for the state.
I was about to say public healthcare savings, then did a double take. Excellent point, Mac.

Its honestly very impressive. By comparison, the city of St. Louis has about half as many people living in the city proper (300k vs 600k), and we had like 25 pedestrian deaths from cars alone in 2024. That doesnt even factor in bikes that were hit by cars and caused fatalities, or cars that hit cars and caused fatalities. Or the many vehicles that seemed to find their way into the sides of buildings (especially the cop cars) last year

Im assuming they mean Helsinki proper, rather than the metro. If they mean the metro area then it is about half the size of St. Louis (1.5M vs 3M). But that would be insane to have a metro of 1.5M people go without a single traffic death in a year

Username checks out.
- I have no idea why you are taking downvotes. Thought it was a good St. Louis reference.

That's truly admirable. We should study what they're doing and emulate them.

Traffic engineers and urban planners in the US and Canada know all about European design, and they agree.
It's the voters that are the problem.
- Voters? Or lobbyists?
- Even worse, when the voters ask for something to benefit them, the elected don't listen. Look at the multiple articles in the last few months about governors and such (each in the South, at least the ones that I saw), overturning legislation voted for by their constituents.
Lmao like leadership in America is going to choose that over $.
Nah, how about we just keep buying bigger vehicles? As long as my car is bigger than the other guy's, I'm safe!

Great news, congratulations Helsinki.

They mention electric scooters having their own challenges and solutions without going into any details. Do they treat them as bikes or bikes? Do they get their own lanes? The article ended too soon!

Electric scooters are considered a "light electric vehicle", but they have basically the same rules and obligations as normal bicyclists (they're supposed to stay in the bike lane, etc). But the scooters aren't allowed to go faster than 25km/h, and you need to be over 15 to use one.
- They also recently introduced a 0.5‰ BAC limit for light electric vehicles.
- the same rules and obligations as normal bicyclists
  So none.
My wag: they're treated like bikes or skateboards or even pedestrians, but somewhat vaguely. Definitely no own lanes. Not treated as mopeds.
- I had to go to urban dictionary for wag = wild-ass guess.

Well, we can't have that! The government will fix this soon!

They have good traffic designs in a lot of places but also horrible multiple lane passways without protection. And a significant minority of Finnish drivers break the law by not stopping on a crosswalk when other cars have stopped on the same crosswalk.

Also there have been plenty of near misses due to electric scooters. Children and drunkards are being extremely reckless with those, and in fact a 15-year old girl died near the second largest city Tampere just this summer when she crashed into a car (not publicized yet whose fault this was legally).

But good luck Helsinki!

The second biggest reason I moved here from Onterrible.

What a fucking mediocracy.

...what is public transportation?...