A 22-year-old man from the village of Kravari is in the Clinical Hospital in Bitola with serious bodily injuries. The motorcycle he was riding collided with a Mercedes passenger car around midday, at the junction of Solunska, Dimo Hadzhi Popov and Mihajlo Bojadzhiev streets.

The crash was reported at 12:23 on 12 September. The driver of the car is a 26-year-old from Bitola. An investigation team from the Bitola police carried out the on-site examination. Doctors confirmed serious bodily injuries to the motorcyclist.

The junction where all this happened is not an accident of geography. It is the point where three streets converge in central Bitola - a place with more directions than any driver can take in with a single glance. People in Bitola know that crossing by heart, and they know exactly what it feels like to pull into it.

Two young men, four years apart in age, one midday in their home town. One of them is now waiting on results from doctors. This is not an abstract figure in an annual road-accident table - it is a specific family waiting by the phone.

That same week the Interior Ministry noted that road deaths this year are down compared to last. That is true and it deserves to be said. But a lower death count does not erase this midday in Bitola, and it does not answer the question every driver in that town has been asking for years: is anyone actually reviewing the safety of that junction, or are we waiting for the next 12:23?