Those annoying little noise-polluting motorbikes that illegally roar up and down our neighbourhood streets blasting eardrums and raising tempers of the local residents may soon be a thing of the past.

A bill recently introduced to the parliament by the Ministry of Infrastructures calls for, among other things, all motorbikes, including those of 50cc, to undergo mandatory inspection and be issued noise cards to insure that the exhausts have not been altered.

According to traffic police responsible for issuing bike driving licences, there are roughly 1.5 million small (50cc) motorbikes in Greece.

Mihalis Psarakis, owner of a motorcycle repair shop in Kokkini Hani, said that he gets frequent requests from kids to switch the exhausts.

“Almost daily we get kids coming in asking for after market exhausts which produce a bit more power and, of course, more noise.”