This city has the safest streets in the world? "No one has died here in over a year."

Is Helsinki the safest city in the world for pedestrians today? Over the past 12 months, there have been no fatal road accidents recorded on the streets of the Finnish capital.

For over 12 months , there have been no fatal road accidents recorded on the streets of Helsinki. The last such tragic incident occurred in early July 2024, Helsinki police announced on Saturday.

"It's exceptional and gratifying that no one died in road accidents in Helsinki over the past year. Long-term efforts to improve road safety, infrastructure, and enforcement are paying off. We want this to become the new normal, not just the exception," said Chief Inspector Dennis Pasterstein of the Helsinki Police Department.

Helsinki / Unsplash - Alexandr Bormotin

He stressed that the improvement in the road situation was primarily due to urban planning and rationally introduced speed limits, which directly translates into pedestrian safety.

Data from the Helsinki City Traffic Engineering Department also confirm that the number of accidents involving pedestrians and the number of fatalities on the capital's roads in general has decreased significantly over the last decades.

In 2019 , Helsinki, home to approximately 690,000 people, saw no pedestrian fatalities, marking the first time in the history of record-keeping since the 1960s. In the same year , only one passenger car driver and two motorcyclists were killed on the capital's roads – the fewest since the 1920s (three people also died in 2016).

Helsinki - the safest city in the EU / Lev_Karavanov / Shutterstock

Regulations introducing higher speed limits also came into effect in 2019. Currently, the speed limit in the capital is usually 30 km/h on residential streets; in the city center, it's also 30 or 40 km/h; and on main roads and in the suburbs, it's usually 50 km/h.

In the 1980s and early 1990s, 20-30 people died annually. Since 2010, an average of seven people have lost their lives on the roads, with pedestrians accounting for the majority of fatalities almost every year.

Helsinki / Tapio Haaja / Unsplash