Car drivers will be able to ride motorcycles with an engine capacity of up to 125cc without having to obtain an additional licence as from January.

The move will effectively remove the requirement of obtaining a licence to be able to drive small motorcycles known as motorini. Government sources said the measure was intended to encourage car users to shift to motorini, alleviating traffic congestion.

In the Budget, the road licence for motorbikes up to 125cc was slashed to €10, making them an attractive option.

The decision to enable those with a licence B (for a car) to also drive small bikes was not announced in the Budget speech but found its way into a working document that was uploaded by mistake by the Finance Ministry.

The move left many toying with the idea of buying a motorino to beat the traffic but controversy over the mistakenly released document left everyone in a quandary.

Last Tuesday Prime Minister Joseph Muscat clarified matters in his replica to the Budget speech, saying the government wanted to encourage the use of motorini by allowing licence B holders to ride these bikes.

Sources said the decision will come into force in January and will be accompanied by an educational campaign raising awareness on safe driving. Many major cities in Europe encourage the use of small motorbikes for travel and in Italy these are very popular among young people.

In the wake of the Budget measure to cut the road licence fee for small motorcycles, Gordon Micallef of Gordon’s Moto Centre had told this newspaper the incentive to swap four wheels for two was the only way to cut traffic.

“Can you imagine if you had to replace all the motorcycles in Milan with cars?” he said. “The whole city would come to a stop.”

Mr Micallef had said targeting scooters was the way to address traffic with maximum safety.

kurt.sansone@timesofmalta.com