‘Safe City’ not yet tracking foreign plates — many violations go unpunished until border rollout

Drivers with foreign licence plates who exceed speed limits inside North Macedonia frequently avoid automated penalties because the "Safe City" camera network so far records only domestic registrations. The gap is most visible during the summer months, when thousands of foreign vehicles transit the country and leave before enforcement at the border is in place.

The Ministry of Internal Affairs (MIA) says the system will begin operating first at the Tabanovce border crossing and then be rolled out to other border points, but offered no precise timetable for when "soon" will actually mean.

"The 'Safe City' system will begin operating at the Tabanovce Border Crossing in the coming days, where all drivers of vehicles with foreign registration plates who are recorded by it as having committed an offence or criminal act on the territory of the Republic of North Macedonia will be informed that they have committed an offence, they will be issued a Report for a traffic offence with a traffic fine payment order, after which they will be offered to pay or will be brought before the competent court for expedited proceedings. This way of functioning will soon begin to be applied at all border crossings," the Ministry of Internal Affairs said.

Until the border procedure is activated in practice — and it remains unclear how payment orders or fast-track court procedures will work — foreign drivers can usually be stopped only by traffic officers or so-called intercept teams on the road.

Camera results and safety impact

MIA officials note that patrol officers are stationed along the main transit routes — corridors 8 and 10 — but say that given the summer traffic volumes it is impossible for police to detect every violation, which is why Safe City was deployed. The cameras in the system logged more than 120,000 violations in the first five months after launch; about 95 percent of those were for speeding.

"'Safe City' included a modernization of the existing system in Skopje, Tetovo, Kumanovo, corridors 8 and 10 and its expansion at the national level, through the introduction of modern video surveillance technologies and automatic detection of traffic offences. Since its start on 2 February 2026, in the first five months a reduction in the number of traffic fatalities of 40 percent has been observed, i.e., 33 fatalities, compared to 55 in the same period last year," Minister Panche Toshkovski said.

The Ministry also warned citizens not to open fake messages claiming to come from "Safe City" and not to share personal data, urging people to verify any communications through official channels.

Photo: Слободен печат