Twenty Drivers Without a Licence in Two Days, the Youngest Is 14: Who Gave Them the Keys?

Eight people in one 24-hour period, seventeen in the next. Those are the figures the interior ministry published in two consecutive bulletins on drivers detained for the criminal offence of "reckless driving" under Article 297-a of the Criminal Code. These are not fines, and not misdemeanours. This is a criminal offence - and these are people who got behind the wheel without ever having passed a driving test.

In the first 24 hours those detained included B.S. (33), E.S. (19) and a seventeen-year-old, all from the Skopje area, then E.Z. (28) from Gostivar, E.M. (25) from a village in Dolneni, J.Đ. (41) from the Delčevo area, plus a fourteen-year-old and D.A. (23), both from Kočani.

Fourteen years old. Behind the wheel.

In the second 24 hours the picture is bigger still: 17 drivers detained, twelve of whom were driving without having passed the test. Among them four minors - two from Skopje, one minor from the Kočani area and a teenage girl from Vinica. Four drivers were detained for driving under the influence of alcohol, and one - P.R. (27) from Gostivar - for driving the wrong way down a one-way street.

The ministry says that once the cases are fully documented, the appropriate criminal charges will be filed, and it appeals to all road users to obey the rules. The appeal is standard and it is correct. The question the bulletin does not ask is a different one: if the state catches 20 people without a licence in just two days, how big is the number it does not catch?

These twin bulletins are something we rarely get - two consecutive snapshots of the same problem, published side by side. Together they say this is not an incident but a normalised condition. The youngest detainee is fourteen. Someone gave him the keys.

Stepped-up checks are good news and deserve to be named as such. But a check is the end of the chain, not the beginning. The question that remains is for the people who write policy, not for the officer on the street: why did a fourteen-year-old child in Kočani have access to a vehicle at all?