Annually, on average, 65 people per million inhabitants die on Macedonian roads, which is a quarter more than in European Union (EU) countries, and the situation is no better in the region.
According to data from the International Conference on Traffic Management and Safety presented at the end of May in Skopje, in the Western Balkan countries, an average of 70 people per million inhabitants die annually.
Average roads and old vehicles
According to EU standards, Macedonian roads have an average rating of three stars out of a possible five. According to safety experts, North Macedonia needs to accelerate the construction of modern roads that have been unfinished for years.
According to the dean of the Faculty of Security, Nikola Dujovski, by 2030, the initiated highways must be completed, and conditions on all roads with higher accident rates must be improved.
“We lack public transport. If we had public transport, the traffic intensity on main routes would decrease. Skopje lacks public transport, which is very debatable. Railway traffic doesn’t work. All other forms of traffic in Europe are much more prevalent. We need to move away from traffic predominantly on the road network and shift to public transport, whether it’s by bus or train,” believes Dujovski.
Furthermore, on the streets and roads throughout North Macedonia, cars are the dominant mode of transportation. And they are mostly used cars.
The total import of used passenger cars is five and a half times greater than the import of new ones.
Serbia sets records
In addition to the high mortality rate on roads, North Macedonia and Serbia are also connected by the transit route of Corridor 10. In the summer period, as Mirko Kokovic from the Traffic Safety Agency of Serbia says, over 100.000 vehicles pass through it daily, with a large portion being drivers with vehicles from Serbia heading to vacation in Greece.
“In 2023, we conducted the ‘Drive Rested’ campaign for transit passengers. We worked with the Macedonian Republic Road Safety Council to raise awareness that drivers should take breaks of 15 minutes every two hours, as fatigue is one of the key causes of accidents. This bore fruit, and last year, in the summer season, we had a 37% reduction in casualties on Corridor 10,” Kokovic said, RSE writes.
E.Dz.
