After the tragedy on Skopje's ring road near Mirkovci, which killed four people, the public is asking a question the state isn't comfortable with - was the safety barrier on that section ever designed to stop a truck with a semi-trailer. Architect Boško Vidoeski opened a debate that puts the institutions on the spot.

Analysing a photograph of the breached barriers at the crash site, Vidoeski points out that the median was protected with „N2"-type barriers. Under the European standard EN 1317, that type is rated to stop light vehicles. Not trucks. Not freight vehicles with semi-trailers. A 40-ton truck against an N2 barrier is a book against an RPG.

Vidoeski argues that the left side of motorways with high traffic frequency and regular freight should be protected at minimum with „H2" barriers - designed to stop heavy vehicles crossing into oncoming lanes. Skopje's ring road, the country's main transport artery and a permanent international freight corridor, clearly doesn't meet that standard. The tragedy exposed it, but the question isn't new. Civic experts have been raising it for years.

The prosecution for now is looking only at the individual angle - a 76-year-old driver from Kosovo who „didn't adjust his speed". That's not wrong - he is responsible. But if the barrier was also wrong, the responsibility widens. Who designed it? Who approved it? Who carried out the safety review? Who supervised it? Did anyone raise the alarm in time? All of those questions demand investigations that go beyond a single criminal case.

The expected Macedonian scenario is well known - questions open, expert opinions are commissioned, committees are formed, and within a few months the topic disappears from the headlines. The barriers stay the same. Until the next tragedy. That's one reason our traffic safety progresses at snail's pace - not because the institutions don't know, but because there's no political will to take expensive but necessary infrastructure decisions. Now there are four dead. The question - will it be enough to change the standards?