[tommoor]

Drivers are actually calm in Helsinki, not constantly honking and slowly rolling into you in the pedestrian crossing either.

[stevekemp]

Last night two cars tried to drive in front of a tram, on my ride to the Kallio block party.

So while driving is generally calm, and I'm impressed at how often drives stop for the zebra-crossings, despite minimal notice, it's not universal.

[arp242]

There's always a baseline of assholes.

[dyauspitr]

I rarely hear anyone in the US honking outside of maybe the downtown of really big cities like NYC.

[diggan]

The world differs greatly when it comes to socially acceptable (or even legal) honking. In Sweden barely anyone honks unless to avoid serious accidents. In Spain, there is some honking, even when you just mildly inconvenience someone. In Peru, honking is a way of life/driving, and to communicate with other drivers, even when you just pass someone normally.

[jfengel]

NYC has really cracked down on excessive honking. It's nowhere near as bad as it used to be.

Shouting and middle fingers are still common.

[projektfu]

In Atlanta you get honked at for merely not breaking the rules like the person behind you thinks you should. For example, not taking a right turn on red where the sign says "No Turn on Red", or not pulling out into oncoming traffic because the person behind would be crazy enough to do it.

[socalgal2]

It was common in Shanghai. Then the government made it illegal and actually enforced it. 2 months later, no honking

[ses1984]

How many miles do you drive per day and where are those miles? I hear plenty of honking in the suburbs and I only drive 5 miles per day.

[tommoor]

Yea, I live in downtown NYC and it's egregious. The selfishness of drivers here is frankly unfathomable

[aljgz]

What part of the parent comments implied comparison to US?

[jks]

This may be the case, but as a Helsinki resident I am always surprised when visiting either Stockholm or Tallinn, because their drivers always seem more likely to honor zebra crossings than drivers in Helsinki.

[skippyboxedhero]

Other places have introduced the same limit and haven't seen the same results.

People who are likely to have crashes are likely to be able who ignore the limit. One of the biggest problems in modern policy-making is the introduction of wide-ranging, global policies to tackle a local problem (one place that introduced this limit was Wales, they introduced this limit impacting everyone...but don't do anything about the significant and visible increase in the numbers of people driving without a licence which is causing more accidents...and, ironically, making their speed limit changes look worse than they probably are).

[arp242]

"First 20mph year sees 100 fewer killed or badly hurt" https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/c78w1891z03o

So no, what you're saying is bollocks. And no one ever claimed that speed limits are the only solution.

[mtrovo]

Your example is definitely not a good example of global policies for a local problem. In Wales it was up to the local councils to identify areas that under proper safe circumstances would keep their different limits, defaulting to being reduced to 20mph if nothing was done. That's a very sensible way of handling it.

I have no idea about your stats on driving without a licence being more of a problem than speeding, accidents on roads that got the speed reduced to 20mph or 30mph decreased by 19% YoY, that's a big impact for mostly no additional policing needed.

[crote]

> People who are likely to have crashes are likely to be able who ignore the limit.

... which is why you have to do actual road design. You can't just put up a speed sign and hope people will magically abide by it. Roads need to be designed for the speed you want people to drive. When done properly the vast majority of drivers will follow the speed limit without ever having to look at the signs, because it'll be the speed they will feel comfortable driving.