The Finnish Transport Safety Agency Liikenneturva has called on more municipalities to lower the speed limit on their roads to 30 kilometres an hour.
The call to lower speed limits in built-up areas across Finland comes after the agency compared speed limits on municipal streets with the number of accidents that occurred.
Liikenneturva found that there was a correlation between the number of accidents and the number of streets with 30km/h speed limits. In general, more roads with the lower speed limit meant fewer accidents, the agency said.
"In Espoo, for example, almost 60 percent of the streets are 30 km/h. The number of road accident victims per capita is low compared to other large cities," Liikenneturva head of research Juha Valtonen said.
Keep cars and pedestrians apart
While roughly half of all traffic accidents resulting in personal injury occur in urban areas, only a quarter of Finnish streets have a 30 km/h limit, the agency said.
The agency suggested that municipalities enforce the lower speed limit in areas with more cyclists and pedestrians, adding that further measures to separate cars from people could help lower accident rates further.
"Another solution for municipalities may be to separate walking and cycling from motorised traffic. It is essential that the traffic environment supports the speed limit," Valtonen said.
While there was a positive link between lower speed limits and fewer accidents, some municipalities like Oulu saw both low accident rates and fewer streets with 30 km/h limits.
The transport safety agency also surveyed people's attitudes to 30km/h speed limits and found that 62 percent of respondents said the limit was "safe", while 19 percent called it "appealing".
However, 30 percent said a 30km/h speed limit was "too slow" and 13 percent called it "awkward".