- Helsinki recorded zero traffic-related deaths from July 2024 to July 2025, marking a full year without fatalities.
- Over half of Helsinki’s roads now have a 30km/h speed limit, down from 50km/h in earlier decades.
- Traffic injuries in Helsinki dropped to 277 last year, compared to nearly 1000 annually in the 1980s.
Helsinki has quietly pulled off a road safety milestone that most cities can only dream of: an entire year without a single traffic-related death.
According to Finnish outlet YLE, the streak began in early July 2024 and represents the capital’s first 12-month stretch with zero fatalities on its roads.
It wasn’t one grand initiative that made the difference, but a steady layering of practical, low-drama changes.
“A lot of factors contributed to this, but speed limits are one of the most important,” said Roni Utriainen, a traffic engineer with Helsinki’s Urban Environment Division.
The city recently slashed speed limits to 30km/h around schools, and now more than half its roads carry that cap. That’s a marked shift from the 50km/h default many of those streets held just decades ago.
No magic bullet, just good urban sense
While slower speeds helped, they weren’t the whole story. Over the past several years, Helsinki has bolstered infrastructure for pedestrians and cyclists, expanded automated enforcement like speed and red-light cameras and deployed more traffic officers.
Add in a strong public transport network and growing adoption of in-car safety tech, and the result speaks for itself.
The drop in deaths isn’t a fluke. Traffic injuries have also plummeted—from nearly 1,000 incidents per year in the 1980s to just 277 over the past 12 months, according to YLE.
Utriainen credits a collective effort: “The direction has been positive for years,” he said, noting that Helsinki also had zero pedestrian deaths back in 2019.
Could NZ follow suit?
New Zealand has made progress in certain areas, but the scale of Helsinki’s achievement sets a high bar.
According to the Ministry of Transport, 342 people died on local roads in 2023, and 292 in 2024. Provisional figures for 2025 suggest that number may rise again.
Several local councils have introduced 30km/h zones around schools and town centres, and the national Road to Zero strategy sets an ambitious target: reducing deaths and serious injuries by 40% by 2030. But enforcement, infrastructure and public buy-in remain uneven across regions.
Helsinki’s example offers a quietly powerful reminder: the combination of safer speeds, better design, active policing and behavioural shift can work - not overnight, but steadily. The blueprint exists. The question is whether we’re willing to follow it.