Yesterday at 5:50pm, on „Vidoe Smilevski Bato” boulevard in Tetovo, an Opel Corsa with Tetovo plates left the carriageway and struck a man who was carrying out work duties in a yard.

The driver, A.S., is 20 and comes from the village of Slatino. With him in the car was E.I., 19, from the same village. The injured worker, I.Lj., 67, from Tetovo, sustained serious bodily injuries. The driver and passenger sustained bodily injuries, confirmed at the Tetovo hospital. Officers from the Tetovo police carried out the inspection.

Three numbers in one sentence

Twenty. Nineteen. Sixty-seven.

Two of them were in a car on a boulevard in the afternoon. The third was standing at a workplace, going nowhere.

The reason the vehicle left the carriageway has not yet been established - that is what the inspection determines, not a press release. Until then, all that is known is that this was a straight urban boulevard, in daylight, with good visibility.

The workplace that was not protected from traffic

This is the part that routinely passes without comment in news like this. A 67-year-old man was working in a yard beside a boulevard. Between the carriageway and the spot where he stood there was no barrier that would have stopped the vehicle - otherwise the vehicle would never have reached him.

Here, a yard next to a busy boulevard is an ordinary sight. A protective barrier between them is not. When a car leaving the road ends in serious injuries to a man who was simply doing his job, the question is not only why the driver lost control, but also what stood - or did not stand - between the vehicle and his workplace.

That is not a question for the inspection team. It is a question for whoever approved the yard at that location, and for the inspectorate that oversees it.

For now all three are alive. The Tetovo boulevard remains exactly as it was.