The invention relates to a method for counting events occurring during a period T carried out by a mechanical counter comprising two toothed wheels with the same pitch, the occurrence of an event causing the rotation of each wheel by an angle corresponding to the pitch of the teeth thereof, said method comprising: a first step of counting or calculating, for each wheel at the end of T, the difference in the number of teeth between the initial and final position thereof, said step being at least partially carried out either by optical means, requiring the presence on each wheel of at least one marker, or by means for measuring the angular displacement of each wheel and associated calculation means; and a second step of calculating the number of occurred events N in accordance with the difference between the values counted or measured and in accordance with the number of teeth of the wheels.