State unveils new national road‑safety plan: draft strategy to enter parliament

The state has presented a draft National Strategy for Road Safety 2026–2030 that describes the situation on Macedonian roads as serious and sets an ambitious target: to halve the number of fatal crashes recorded in 2024.

Official figures cited in the material show 124 fatal crashes in 2024; the draft sets a goal of reducing that figure by 50 percent within four years and aims for an equivalent cut in the total number of people harmed. The draft strategy is scheduled to enter parliamentary procedure next Thursday and will be discussed by the Parliament's Commission for Defence and Security (the document itself does not give a specific calendar date).

In the text the draft states: "Projections for the period 2025–2030 indicate a continuous decline in the number of persons who suffer fatal consequences, derived through an exponential model of gradual reduction. The number of fatalities would decrease from 127 in 2025 to 71 in 2030, which represents a total reduction of 50% compared to the level in 2024. This trend is the result of improved safety standards, increased effectiveness of police controls, the use of modern technological solutions for detection and prevention of offences, as well as strengthened preventive and educational campaigns for responsible participation in traffic."

Traffic expert Dejan Trpevski welcomed the focus on education but warned that putting the strategy into practice will take time. He said: "I think the main emphasis should be put on the educational process and on infrastructure, because the educational process will influence the driver as an individual. However, that is on a longer time horizon. And on the infrastructure, which needs to be improved so that traffic accidents can be avoided, what they have defined as 'vision zero' — zero fatalities — which I consider an impossible mission."

Planned measures and the vehicle fleet

The draft lists a package of measures: intensified technical inspections, a digital vehicle register, stricter oversight of inspection stations, and a programme to renew the vehicle fleet with subsidies and tax concessions. The document also promotes the idea of an intelligent traffic monitoring system.

Average vehicle age in the country is reported to be over 18 years. On the affordability problem Trpevski noted that import duties and other charges make replacing cars difficult for many households: "With the purchasing power of the population and these levies that exist in the country, this is very hard to achieve. For a vehicle that costs twelve thousand euros in Germany, if you buy it second‑hand and bring it here you have to pay almost five thousand euros in other charges. The vehicle automatically becomes seventeen thousand euros. In that regard we should not go with subsidies but rather drastically reduce the levies that, let's say, are for carbon dioxide, for the taxes; let vehicles have a preferential tax rate of 5% instead of 18%," he said.

The strategy further foresees improved signage, street lighting, guardrails and measures to reduce speeds in urban areas, and it lists speeding, alcohol and psychoactive substances, poor traffic culture, inadequate infrastructure and the old vehicle fleet as the main risks the plan seeks to address.

Petar Dogov

Photo: press material from the event