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> The UK is not that different by comparison. Do note that the UK is 15.6x as dense as Finland, and the climate is quite different: e.g. in Helsinki (southermo

> The UK is not that different by comparison. Do note that the UK is 15.6x as dense as Finland, and the climate is quite different: e.g. in Helsinki (southermost city) mean daily temperature is below freezing point 4/12 months of the year (very consequential for driving). E.g. in Scotland even the mean daily minimum does not cross freezing point in any month. OECD data has Finland at 0.36 fatalities per 10k vehicles vs 0.41 in the UK. https://www.itf-oecd.org/road-safety-dashboard https://www.itf-oecd.org/road-safety-dashboard

throwaway9832 1y ago
[flagged]
- Teever 1y ago
  You seem to be suggesting that frozen roads paradoxically make for safer driving? Is that a fair characterization of your comment?
  - 01HNNWZ0MV43FF 1y ago
    People widely believe this about stick-shift cars, too. I don't, but people do.
  - threatofrain 1y ago
    And narrow lanes make drivers more cautious.
    - hdgvhicv 1y ago
      People not used to it. On my school run some will do 20-60 depending on where along the road and how narrow and what the sight lines are. Others will just do 20-30 for the whole 10 miles. At a couple of locations there’s morning room but lots of room to overtake (as long as nothing comes the other way), the road is nearly wide enough to have a line down the middle. Most drivers are fine but some of the 20-30 lot will swerve all over the road to try to block overtaking. These aren’t super narrow, you can get a tractor or hgv down the whole road, and even at some passing places get one past another.
  - macintux 1y ago
    I'm not the person you're replying to, and I have no idea what the data says about frozen roads, but it's certainly possible that two things are both true: - There are more accidents (per active vehicle) on frozen roads - There are fewer fatalities on frozen roads due to the lower speeds
    - throwaway9832 1y ago
      [flagged]
  - throwaway9832 1y ago
    Yes, that is a pretty fair characterization. The reasons is because most accidents happens due to inattention and over confidence, hazardous roads makes people pay more attention. A distracted person is more dangerous than a drunkard on the road.
  - davidthewatson 1y ago
    If so, that's interesting. Why? One of my principles is that we gain control of an uncontrollable environment by relinquishing control to that environment. It may not be obvious, but icy roads are an uncontrollable environment. Hence, the rally driver gains control by relinquishing control, allowing the car to have an imaginary and symbolic role in her success (all hail Michelle Mouton). Think of the best Scandinavian WRC champ. In the real world, abandoning driving is advisable for many, or if continuing to drive in obviously unsafe conditions, controlling what can be controlled by lowering speed, etc. This may seem improvisational, as some of it is indeed. However, these control schemes may be orchestrated as well. How? By ranking tires by performance in the worst winter conditions on Tire Rack before making a choice. Do that and everyone wins.
- squidgyhead 1y ago
  Speed enforcement has been extensively studied, and there are a lot of publicly available articles on the subject. The results are basically universally in favour of speed enforcement reducing motor vehicle collisions, reducing injury and cost.
  - throwaway9832 1y ago
    [flagged]
    - franga2000 1y ago
      Where did anyone say that??? As for trucks having the same speed limit as cars in general: 1) a lot of the time there is a lower limit, 2) the truck itself has a lower max highway speed, 3) there a far fewer trucks on the road so it doesn't matter a much, 4) they are driven by professional drivers with things like electronically enforced daily driving limits, so many of the common causes of accidents are less likely.
      - throwaway9832 1y ago
        The legislation in the Anglosphere countries? Are you slow? Where in Australia, New Zealand, Singapore, UK, Canada, or even most of US can you go 10 km/h over speed limit and not get fined? For your other points. 1. Where? other than steep grades, differential speed is not a thing. 2. Where again? Which trucks? Majority of trucks can do highway speed just fine, despite their 3 to 10x stopping distance. 3. Fewer tracks where? Most of Australia and New Zealand runs on trucks. But even if they're rare, truck accidents over 60 are often fatal due to their weight and energy. 4. Professional drivers can't adjust the laws of physics. Stopping distance is stopping distance.
        franga2000 1y ago
        You were replying to a comment saying "studies have shown lower speed limits reduce accidents" with something along the lines of "but who cares if I go 10 over the limit, trucks have more mass and are more dangerous at the same speed". I can't even see your original comment since it was flagged, presumably for being total nonsense. This is not one vs the other, multiple things can be true. Trucks are individually more dangerous than cars. There are far more cars than trucks on basically every road basically everywhere. Cars are driven by any idiot in all kinds of situations, trucks are driven by professionals during their regulated working hours.
- atoav 1y ago
  > People drive more carefully on frozen roads. I am from the alps, with my share of knowledge about frozen roads. I would add to that: "People drive more carefully on frozen roads, *if they are not used to frozen roads and/or know roads are frozen.*" For point one: In Austria I have seen (local) cars drive 30 km/h over the speed limit on the Autobahn while it was snowing at sub zero, with exactly the same (too close) breaking distance to others. In my experience for many people used to snow/ice the speed limit is still the orientation for many during ice/snow. If anything I'd expect the increase in defensive driving to be offset by the increase in accidents due to bad view, longer breaking distances, etc. As for the second point: In Austria the second it snows or rainfall happens at subzero amadas of snow/ice clearing vehicles hit the road, yet during my lifetime I experienced black ice multiple times. To those who don't know what this is, it is a invisible layer of extremely smooth ice coating the road, which can happen of air + road temperatures and rainfall just align in the worst way possible. The resulting road is so slippy as if god had toggled off the "simulate friction"-checkbox. I remember a time where no-one could leave my village because they couldn't get up that one hill on foot. I managed to get to school by stomping through half a meter of snow next to the road and slipped 10 times on the way to the school while wittnessing multiple (minor) car crashes. I have seen such conditions happen on the Autobahn as well and the results are not pretty. Zero traffic casualties in a cold climate therefore has to mean absolutely lightning fast road maintenance and/or stellar information on the current road conditions and is certainly an extremely impressive feat. I can't imagine this is possible without adaptive speed limits (and rhe infrastructure that is needed to pull that off). The Finns have reason to be proud (aside from them being really nice people in my personal experience).
  - prmoustache 1y ago
    I am familiar with black ice hving lived a large part of my life in Switzerland. Black ice usually involve having temperatures swinging around zero + rain. It doesn't happen if you are at -10°C. Also. Finland has a long history of maintaining both dirt roads all year and ice roads in the winter on top of body of water so I guess drivers are much more used to them. It is also a relatively flat country.
- Sharlin 1y ago
  Tell that to all the (usually Southern) Finns who seem to think that you’re supposed to drive at or above the speed limit and at too short following distances even in terrible conditions… with predictable consequences.
  - prmoustache 1y ago
    I think this is universal.
    - fabioborellini 1y ago
      Since there really are no traffic jams in Finland, my experience is that the phenomenon is worse here. In more populated countries drivers must deal with sometimes occurring reduced speeds like adults, but in Finland there usually is enough space for a single driver to keep their speed at 115% of the limit, due to other drivers facilitating the selfishness. If someone does not facilitate, the speeder will get aggressive and has to find someone to blame for their (actually, his and his car’s, which has more civil rights than a leftist) misfortune. In Germany all drivers have to accept that there isn’t enough road capacity so everyone could drive as fast as they want and the Staus cannot be blamed on the car in front of you. It’s also common to drive under the limit, in Finland 115% of the limit is the socially acceptable minimum.
  - throwaway9832 1y ago
    [flagged]
    - Sharlin 1y ago
      I responded to the "People drive more carefully on frozen roads." part. Which was not qualified with any particular geographical context. The point is that insofar as people drive more carefully in poor conditions in absolute terms, they still drive less carefully relative to the actual difficulty of said conditions.
- devjab 1y ago
  I see that you're not from Scandinavia. Here in Denmark the weeks around the first frost are infamous for people crashing in heaps because they were too slow to get their winter tires on and drove as usual. People here generally overestimate their ability to drive in bad weather, likely because we have so much of it.
  - prmoustache 1y ago
    The good thing is a large fraction of accident involving frozen roads usually happen at much smaller speeds which mean they are less likely to impact injuries and death statistics than car bodywork repairs statistics.
- normie3000 1y ago
  Could we recreate these optimum safety conditions by legislating for ice-feel tires? Then everyone would be in the slippery mindset all year.
rwyinuse 1y ago
Yet most deadly months for traffic in Finland are summer months, when more people are driving, drinking alcohol and having a lot of free time. At least in the countryside a stereotypical summer month death is one where bunch of young men go to a party with their old BMW or Merc, and then drive back in middle of the night at a crazy speed and hit a tree. Bonus points for the driver being drunk/on drugs and nobody wearing seatbelts.
- mmasu 1y ago
  is it also possible that one of the side effects of this are that people driving recreationally become sometimes exceptionally good at it? see how many great f1/rally pilots Finland has generated. Clearly not good when this happens while drunk tho
  - rwyinuse 1y ago
    Yes, I think it's definitely a factor. Recreational driving is a favorite past-time in the countryside, and due to the forest industry there are lots of dirt roads which are perfect for rally driving, many purpose-built race tracks around the country as well. So the barrier of entry is probably lower than in most places. It's also not too uncommon for kids whose parents own / have access to some land to have some old, unregistered car to practice with away from public roads. There is even a popular racing class called "jokamiehenluokka", where drivers are obliged to sell their cars for 2000 euros if somebody makes an offer. That rule is designed to keep the barrier of entry low, as drivers don't have the incentive to invest too much into their car. Apparently you can take the exam tojoin at age of 15, which is 3 years before the normal minimum age for driving license. I recommend the game "My Summer Car" for those interested in all this culture.
    - shmeeed 1y ago
      I've been wondering when the inevitable My Summer Car reference would pop up :)
- unangst 1y ago
  ̶B̶o̶n̶u̶s̶ ̶p̶o̶i̶n̶t̶s̶-̶ Additional sadness

throwaway9832 1y ago

[flagged]

Teever 1y ago
You seem to be suggesting that frozen roads paradoxically make for safer driving? Is that a fair characterization of your comment?
- 01HNNWZ0MV43FF 1y ago
  People widely believe this about stick-shift cars, too. I don't, but people do.
- threatofrain 1y ago
  And narrow lanes make drivers more cautious.
  - hdgvhicv 1y ago
    People not used to it. On my school run some will do 20-60 depending on where along the road and how narrow and what the sight lines are. Others will just do 20-30 for the whole 10 miles. At a couple of locations there’s morning room but lots of room to overtake (as long as nothing comes the other way), the road is nearly wide enough to have a line down the middle. Most drivers are fine but some of the 20-30 lot will swerve all over the road to try to block overtaking. These aren’t super narrow, you can get a tractor or hgv down the whole road, and even at some passing places get one past another.
- macintux 1y ago
  I'm not the person you're replying to, and I have no idea what the data says about frozen roads, but it's certainly possible that two things are both true: - There are more accidents (per active vehicle) on frozen roads - There are fewer fatalities on frozen roads due to the lower speeds
  - throwaway9832 1y ago
    [flagged]
- throwaway9832 1y ago
  Yes, that is a pretty fair characterization. The reasons is because most accidents happens due to inattention and over confidence, hazardous roads makes people pay more attention. A distracted person is more dangerous than a drunkard on the road.
- davidthewatson 1y ago
  If so, that's interesting. Why? One of my principles is that we gain control of an uncontrollable environment by relinquishing control to that environment. It may not be obvious, but icy roads are an uncontrollable environment. Hence, the rally driver gains control by relinquishing control, allowing the car to have an imaginary and symbolic role in her success (all hail Michelle Mouton). Think of the best Scandinavian WRC champ. In the real world, abandoning driving is advisable for many, or if continuing to drive in obviously unsafe conditions, controlling what can be controlled by lowering speed, etc. This may seem improvisational, as some of it is indeed. However, these control schemes may be orchestrated as well. How? By ranking tires by performance in the worst winter conditions on Tire Rack before making a choice. Do that and everyone wins.
squidgyhead 1y ago
Speed enforcement has been extensively studied, and there are a lot of publicly available articles on the subject. The results are basically universally in favour of speed enforcement reducing motor vehicle collisions, reducing injury and cost.
- throwaway9832 1y ago
  [flagged]
  - franga2000 1y ago
    Where did anyone say that??? As for trucks having the same speed limit as cars in general: 1) a lot of the time there is a lower limit, 2) the truck itself has a lower max highway speed, 3) there a far fewer trucks on the road so it doesn't matter a much, 4) they are driven by professional drivers with things like electronically enforced daily driving limits, so many of the common causes of accidents are less likely.
    - throwaway9832 1y ago
      The legislation in the Anglosphere countries? Are you slow? Where in Australia, New Zealand, Singapore, UK, Canada, or even most of US can you go 10 km/h over speed limit and not get fined? For your other points. 1. Where? other than steep grades, differential speed is not a thing. 2. Where again? Which trucks? Majority of trucks can do highway speed just fine, despite their 3 to 10x stopping distance. 3. Fewer tracks where? Most of Australia and New Zealand runs on trucks. But even if they're rare, truck accidents over 60 are often fatal due to their weight and energy. 4. Professional drivers can't adjust the laws of physics. Stopping distance is stopping distance.
      - franga2000 1y ago
        You were replying to a comment saying "studies have shown lower speed limits reduce accidents" with something along the lines of "but who cares if I go 10 over the limit, trucks have more mass and are more dangerous at the same speed". I can't even see your original comment since it was flagged, presumably for being total nonsense. This is not one vs the other, multiple things can be true. Trucks are individually more dangerous than cars. There are far more cars than trucks on basically every road basically everywhere. Cars are driven by any idiot in all kinds of situations, trucks are driven by professionals during their regulated working hours.
atoav 1y ago
> People drive more carefully on frozen roads. I am from the alps, with my share of knowledge about frozen roads. I would add to that: "People drive more carefully on frozen roads, *if they are not used to frozen roads and/or know roads are frozen.*" For point one: In Austria I have seen (local) cars drive 30 km/h over the speed limit on the Autobahn while it was snowing at sub zero, with exactly the same (too close) breaking distance to others. In my experience for many people used to snow/ice the speed limit is still the orientation for many during ice/snow. If anything I'd expect the increase in defensive driving to be offset by the increase in accidents due to bad view, longer breaking distances, etc. As for the second point: In Austria the second it snows or rainfall happens at subzero amadas of snow/ice clearing vehicles hit the road, yet during my lifetime I experienced black ice multiple times. To those who don't know what this is, it is a invisible layer of extremely smooth ice coating the road, which can happen of air + road temperatures and rainfall just align in the worst way possible. The resulting road is so slippy as if god had toggled off the "simulate friction"-checkbox. I remember a time where no-one could leave my village because they couldn't get up that one hill on foot. I managed to get to school by stomping through half a meter of snow next to the road and slipped 10 times on the way to the school while wittnessing multiple (minor) car crashes. I have seen such conditions happen on the Autobahn as well and the results are not pretty. Zero traffic casualties in a cold climate therefore has to mean absolutely lightning fast road maintenance and/or stellar information on the current road conditions and is certainly an extremely impressive feat. I can't imagine this is possible without adaptive speed limits (and rhe infrastructure that is needed to pull that off). The Finns have reason to be proud (aside from them being really nice people in my personal experience).
- prmoustache 1y ago
  I am familiar with black ice hving lived a large part of my life in Switzerland. Black ice usually involve having temperatures swinging around zero + rain. It doesn't happen if you are at -10°C. Also. Finland has a long history of maintaining both dirt roads all year and ice roads in the winter on top of body of water so I guess drivers are much more used to them. It is also a relatively flat country.
Sharlin 1y ago
Tell that to all the (usually Southern) Finns who seem to think that you’re supposed to drive at or above the speed limit and at too short following distances even in terrible conditions… with predictable consequences.
- prmoustache 1y ago
  I think this is universal.
  - fabioborellini 1y ago
    Since there really are no traffic jams in Finland, my experience is that the phenomenon is worse here. In more populated countries drivers must deal with sometimes occurring reduced speeds like adults, but in Finland there usually is enough space for a single driver to keep their speed at 115% of the limit, due to other drivers facilitating the selfishness. If someone does not facilitate, the speeder will get aggressive and has to find someone to blame for their (actually, his and his car’s, which has more civil rights than a leftist) misfortune. In Germany all drivers have to accept that there isn’t enough road capacity so everyone could drive as fast as they want and the Staus cannot be blamed on the car in front of you. It’s also common to drive under the limit, in Finland 115% of the limit is the socially acceptable minimum.
- throwaway9832 1y ago
  [flagged]
  - Sharlin 1y ago
    I responded to the "People drive more carefully on frozen roads." part. Which was not qualified with any particular geographical context. The point is that insofar as people drive more carefully in poor conditions in absolute terms, they still drive less carefully relative to the actual difficulty of said conditions.
devjab 1y ago
I see that you're not from Scandinavia. Here in Denmark the weeks around the first frost are infamous for people crashing in heaps because they were too slow to get their winter tires on and drove as usual. People here generally overestimate their ability to drive in bad weather, likely because we have so much of it.
- prmoustache 1y ago
  The good thing is a large fraction of accident involving frozen roads usually happen at much smaller speeds which mean they are less likely to impact injuries and death statistics than car bodywork repairs statistics.
normie3000 1y ago
Could we recreate these optimum safety conditions by legislating for ice-feel tires? Then everyone would be in the slippery mindset all year.

rwyinuse 1y ago

Yet most deadly months for traffic in Finland are summer months, when more people are driving, drinking alcohol and having a lot of free time. At least in the countryside a stereotypical summer month death is one where bunch of young men go to a party with their old BMW or Merc, and then drive back in middle of the night at a crazy speed and hit a tree. Bonus points for the driver being drunk/on drugs and nobody wearing seatbelts.

mmasu 1y ago
is it also possible that one of the side effects of this are that people driving recreationally become sometimes exceptionally good at it? see how many great f1/rally pilots Finland has generated. Clearly not good when this happens while drunk tho
- rwyinuse 1y ago
  Yes, I think it's definitely a factor. Recreational driving is a favorite past-time in the countryside, and due to the forest industry there are lots of dirt roads which are perfect for rally driving, many purpose-built race tracks around the country as well. So the barrier of entry is probably lower than in most places. It's also not too uncommon for kids whose parents own / have access to some land to have some old, unregistered car to practice with away from public roads. There is even a popular racing class called "jokamiehenluokka", where drivers are obliged to sell their cars for 2000 euros if somebody makes an offer. That rule is designed to keep the barrier of entry low, as drivers don't have the incentive to invest too much into their car. Apparently you can take the exam tojoin at age of 15, which is 3 years before the normal minimum age for driving license. I recommend the game "My Summer Car" for those interested in all this culture.
  - shmeeed 1y ago
    I've been wondering when the inevitable My Summer Car reference would pop up :)
unangst 1y ago
̶B̶o̶n̶u̶s̶ ̶p̶o̶i̶n̶t̶s̶-̶ Additional sadness