From January to August this year, 62 people were killed on Macedonia's roads. In the same period last year - 96. That's 34 fewer deaths, a drop of 35.42 percent. This is a figure that shouldn't be relativised or dismissed just because it was published by the Interior Ministry.

Almost everything is going down. The total number of traffic accidents fell from 5,485 to 4,840. Fatal accidents from 82 to 54. The total number of casualties, killed and injured combined, from 4,731 to 3,868 - 863 fewer people. There are 833 fewer people with bodily injuries.

The ministry lists the credit in a single sentence: the "Safe City" system, legislative changes, stepped-up checks and prevention. Camera-based fines began on 1 February 2026; the offence is detected automatically, and the notice arrives by SMS and email. The ministry also recalls that from 2010 to 2025, between 116 and 198 people died on the roads every year - and 132 in 2025 alone.

The number that didn't budge

There is one item in the whole statement that doesn't fit. Seriously injured people numbered 686 in this period last year, and 690 this year. Accidents involving serious injuries, meanwhile, fell from 594 to 528. So: fewer such accidents - but almost the same number of people seriously hurt. What does that mean? Are the accidents that still happen more severe? The ministry, which otherwise explains every decline in detail, has no explanation for this one.

And one more question the statement skips: how much of the drop is down to cameras, how much to the law, and how much to police officers on the ground? When everything is an "integrated approach", nobody can say what actually works - and that's exactly what needs to be known before "Safe City" expands further, as the ministry is announcing. It's good that the numbers are going down. It'll be even better when the same energy goes into explaining why some of them aren't.