The first call came in at 18:29, on the Bitola-Prilep road, at the spot known as "Tulana". A collision between an Opel driven by a 28-year-old from the Prilep village of Kanatlarci and a Ford driven by a 48-year-old from Dolno Srpci. The passenger in the Opel, a 17-year-old girl, died at the scene. Death was confirmed by an emergency doctor from Bitola. Seriously injured were the Opel's driver, and a 44-year-old man and a seven-year-old child from Dolno Srpci who were travelling in the Ford. The Ford's driver was injured too.

A little over three hours later, at 21:35, a second call - this time to the Kumanovo police. On the Kumanovo-Skopje motorway, heading towards Skopje, in the area of Agino Selo, a Mercedes driven by a 65-year-old from Skopje collided with an Opel Corsa driven by a 27-year-old, also from Skopje. Two passengers in the Corsa, aged 49 and 71, died at the scene. Three people were injured, one woman seriously, all taken to the Mother Teresa hospital. Five firefighters worked to clear the site. On a prosecutor's order, the Mercedes driver was detained.

The tally of one evening: three dead and seven injured, among them a child of seven. One driver is in custody and charges will follow once the case is documented. For the crash near Bitola, the police bulletin carries the standard sentence: the circumstances and causes "are subject to investigation". How many of those investigations end with a publicly stated cause, so that the people who drive that same road every day know what happened?

The question for the state is not who was driving. It is what the state knows about the places where this keeps repeating. Are the Bitola-Prilep road at "Tulana" and the motorway at Agino Selo on any register of accident black spots, and what exactly has been done there? If that register exists, nobody mentions it on evenings like this. If it does not, that is an answer in itself.

One family in Bitola and two in Skopje are not counting statistics today. For everyone else, the number is a reminder that between 18:29 and 21:35 on an ordinary Saturday, on two ordinary roads, three lives ended. It is left to the institutions to say why - and what will be different next Saturday.