HELSINKI
In 2019, there were no pedestrians killed in traffic in Helsinki. A similar result was recorded in 1908—111 years ago.
“If we can trust the older sources, the last time we avoided pedestrian casualties was over a hundred years ago,” says Jussi Yli-Seppälä, a traffic engineer at the City of Helsinki, in a statement.
Accidents have been accurately recorded since 1960, and since pedestrians have been killed in traffic yearly.
However, the number of deaths in traffic has decreased significantly in the previous decades. While in the 1980s and still at the beginning of the ‘90s, yearly deaths amounted to a number between 20 and 30, after the mid-90s the death rate started decreasing noticeably. In the 2010s, about seven persons were killed in Helsinki traffic yearly; pedestrians being the largest number. 1965 was the darkest year: 84 people were killed.
“There’s still work to do to increase the safety in traffic. Even if the number of deaths has clearly decreased, 400 people were injured in traffic. Of them, 80 were pedestrians, Yli-Seppälä says.
