One hundred and fifty-one fines in a day and a half. That is what the "Safe City" system logged in its first 36 hours of operation in the Veles police district - an area covering Veles, Kavadarci, Negotino and Demir Kapija.

The figures were announced by Interior Minister Panche Toshkovski during a visit to Veles. On Saturday the system registered 124 fines, with another 27 by midday on Sunday. Most were for speeding - only three or four for running a red light.

"We understood that implementing the 'Safe City' system is about saving human lives, not about filling the budget. Citizens have shown they can behave in a European way", Toshkovski said. Veles also got a command centre for the system, housed in fully renovated premises previously used by the Ministry of Defence and then left empty for fifteen to twenty years.

The number that actually means something

Of all the figures presented, one matters more than every fine added together. Through August last year, 96 people died on Macedonia's roads. In the same period this year - 61. That is a difference of 35 lives, over a single year.

That number deserves repeating, because numbers like it are rare. It is not a projection, not a promise, not a "let's see in five years". It is the gap between two columns in the same table, and that gap consists of people who are still alive.

One question stays open, though. If the drop in deaths is credited to the cameras, then what has been happening where there are no cameras - Povardarie until yesterday? The system is rolling out gradually, town by town, which means a driver's safety depends on which part of the country they happen to be driving through. Toshkovski raised it himself: the same day he spoke about the crash near Miladinovci, where two people died on the spot. There are no cameras there.

The other question is the one no press conference covers: what happens to the money from the fines. The minister says the system is not about filling the budget. Nice sentence - but 151 fines in a day and a half, multiplied by the weeks and the towns still to come, is a serious sum. The public deserves to see where that money goes, out of pure interest: if it really does go back into road safety, that is a story worth telling. If not - then the sentence stays just a sentence.