Five hours. That is how long the Mobile Traffic Safety Unit's operation lasted, from 5pm to 10pm. The nationwide result: 178 fined riders of motorbikes and electric scooters, 13 people detained and five motorbikes seized.

Of all 178 penalties, 156 were for one single thing - riding a motorbike without a helmet. Not speeding, not alcohol, not registration. Helmets. So nine out of every ten fined riders got on a bike bare-headed.

Kocani and Vinica as the test ground

In Kocani and Vinica the operation produced 59 penalties: 34 for riding without a helmet, three for riding without the right licence category, one for alcohol, one for expired insurance, one for expired registration and one for a scooter rider. Another 16 were for other traffic offences.

Three criminal offences were also uncovered there - all under Article 297-a of the Criminal Code, driving a motor vehicle without a licence. One of those detained is a minor. Three motorbikes were seized.

The crackdown is not random. On 14 July the new provisions of the Road Traffic Safety Act came into force, raising the minimum age for riding electric scooters from 14 to 18, and cutting the maximum speed on cycle lanes from 25 to 20 kilometres per hour. Interior ministry analysis showed that the highest number of scooter accidents involves people under 18.

The law is passed. What now?

The ministry says the checks will continue and appeals to all road users. Appeals are free and have been repeated for years. What costs money is a crew in the field - and that crew was in the field for five hours, in one window, on one day.

178 fines in five hours works out at roughly one fine every 100 seconds. That is not the number of an exception; it is the number of a condition. The question is not whether the checks caught offenders - clearly they did. The question is what happens during the other 19 hours of the day, and on the days when the Mobile Unit is somewhere else entirely.