[owenversteeg]

This is certainly a good thing, but for all the Americans self-flagellating in the comments, it is mostly because Helsinki is wealthy, tiny (600k people), and doesn’t drive that much - mostly because of its high population density. Compare it to wealthy US states and you’ll see similar numbers: Mass has 4 deaths per billion km, RI/MN/NH have 5, Switzerland/Sweden has 3, Germany has 4, Finland has 5, France has 6. If you compare instead per 100k people, ignoring distance driven, that’s 6 in RI/NY/MA, 2 in Sweden, 3 in Finland, 5 in France - and 3 in NYC.

[cucumber3732842]

All of the people who self flagellate on these topics know that the wealthy urban Northeast has similar stats to Europe on any given issue.

They're self flagellating because they can't just come out and say what "those people off in Iowa, yeah, well F them" or something along those lines.

[chneu]

I'm American and I find the way Americans misuse words, or completely misrepresent a concept, so we don't have to accept our failings to be really short sighted.

Americans lie to ourselves constantly to perpetuate our mistakes. We twist the meaning of words so we don't have to admit how selfish/shitty we can be.

You're right. Most Americans won't come out and say what they mean, so they'll dance around it. That's how so many racist Americans can say they aren't racist.