Using python hashmap for counting elements -

when need count elements of different type , find myself writing like:

if k not in removed:     removed[k] = 0 removed[k] = removed[k] + 1 

sometimes same thing new empty list grow on time. above code works fine, feels there better way of writing it. there?

in addition defaultdict/counter mentioned in comments, can have default value returned failed get. allows set initial count 0 if key lookup fails , increment 1, or increment 1 each time key found loop through.

vehicles = ['car', 'bike', 'truck', 'car', 'truck', 'truck']  my_dict = {} k in vehicles:     my_dict[k] = my_dict.get(k, 0) + 1