In a single 24-hour period, police detained 18 drivers across the country for "reckless operation of a vehicle". Nine of them were driving under the influence of alcohol, and seven had never passed a driving test at all.

The drunk drivers were caught in Shtip, Prilep, Demir Hisar, Bitola, Kumanovo and Negotino. A driver from Kumanovo was measured at 1.57 per mille of alcohol in his blood and behaved aggressively towards police officers. A driver from Demir Hisar, measured at 1.89 per mille, had already caused a traffic accident.

Nearly two per mille. For context, the legal limit is 0.5. This is not a man who had a glass of wine with lunch - this is a man who can barely walk, and who still sat behind a wheel.

Two minors among them

The seven drivers without a licence come from Kumanovo, Skopje, Bitola, Gostivar and the municipality of Chashka. Two of them are minors - one was driving a passenger car, the other a motorcycle.

Which means somebody handed them the keys. A car and a motorcycle do not appear underneath a minor by themselves; an adult in that household decided it was fine.

In the same period police also stopped two drivers, from Kumanovo and Skopje, who were driving despite an active driving ban. So the ban existed - it just meant to them about as much as a speed sign on an empty road.

Not a one-off day

The previous 24 hours brought 13 detained drivers, eight of them without a licence - four in Skopje and one each in Kumanovo, Tetovo, the Lipkovo area and Kichevo. Two foreign nationals were also detained then, from Turkey and Ukraine, for driving at twice the permitted speed on the A1 motorway near Demir Kapija and on the Skopje-Veles section.

That makes 31 detained drivers in two days. This is not a successful operation - it is a snapshot of Macedonian roads on any average weekend.

The Interior Ministry is appealing to all road users to respect the rules and limits. The appeal is correct, it is routine, and it will be repeated next week with new numbers.

The question is whether 18 detentions in 24 hours means the checks are working, or that the supply far exceeds the capacity to catch it. Judging by the fact that two of them were already under an active ban - the answer is not the first one.