Five hours of checks, 167 offences. That is how long it took the Interior Ministry's traffic department to measure the discipline of electric scooter riders across Macedonia - on September 28, between 5pm and 10pm.

The Mobile Road Traffic Safety Unit recorded the most offences, 81 in total. Another 26 were recorded in the Ohrid police district and 23 in the Bitola district, with the rest spread across other police districts. Two scooters were confiscated. Most of the penalties were for the same thing: riding at night without a reflective vest and without a protective helmet.

Those are the two cheapest items in this whole story. And yet riders head out into the dark as if drivers can see them at every moment - which, without a vest, is precisely what doesn't happen.

In the same operation, police also recorded 206 offences of other kinds, more than the scooter ones. The ministry says the stepped-up checks will continue. Good. But a single five-hour operation is a snapshot of the problem, not a solution. The real test is whether there will be checks in November too, when it gets dark before the working day is even over - and not only when it's time for a press release.