For 12 months, no road clash with victims has been recorded in Helsinki. The “Vision Zero”, the European project to reset the dead on the road by 2050, seems to have been reached here with a quarter of a century in advance. The Helsinki case is interesting because the Finnish capital is not part of those European cities that have taken a radical path in favor of the fight against cars. We are not in Copenhagen, we are not in Amsterdam and we are not even in Paris, in Barcelona or London. And despite this, we are light years ahead in Milan and Italian cities.

Helsinki is not a city with few cars; But the motorization rate is falling and in any case a dozen abundant of lower points in Milan if we consider the possession of cars per 100 inhabitants (which in Milan, sensationally, increases). Helsinki is not a city where the trams dart at supersonic speeds making the car superfluous; But in any case their average speed is double compared to the Milanese surreal one. Helsinki is far from full of cycle paths; But unlike ours, he aimed at a widespread and organic cycle in which bikes and cars live peacefully on the road without the need for many mutual delimitations. And one could go on for a long time in telling a city that is not so Taliban and so at the forefront in the mobility choices, but which is still enne times better than us. A city from which we can therefore learn a lot if we aim to save human lives and reduce the economic and social disaster represented by incidentality. Let’s see a list of these teachings.

The speed limits

They represent the first point of this story. Despite what wants to make us believe Matteo Salvini, according to which the accidents take place because of those who drug or those who drink too much alcohol (smoke in the eyes for Credulons: that type of accidents represents 5% of the total), the accident is essentially caused by speed. It is necessary to act on that and the most virtuous cities are all oriented to become a city 30. Helsinki is not a city 30 (we said above, they never exaggerate), but it is a city where many streets have been led to a limit of 30 km per hour. But after all what else we need to convince ourselves that this is the way? Bologna, like Helsinki, also celebrated a year without deaths on the streets thanks to zone 30. Therefore, the reluctance on these themes by the mayor Sala remains inexplicable, who has repeatedly reiterated, without explaining why it is based on superstitions and retailed, which “in Milan it cannot be done everywhere”. Worse still made the Minister of Infrastructure, according to which the city 30 hinders the people who “have to go to work” (it is known that in Brussels or London they are all unemployed …). The atrocious implication of this story is that the superstitions against zone 30, authentic chatter from non -slip barber, have turned into law within the new highway code.

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