It began, as usual, with a post. A Petrești resident shared a short clip of children on motorcycles and a blunt message: “Parents who bought their children motorcycles — you didn’t think of the consequences.” Below it, dozens of reactions and a chorus of comments with the same frustration: that minors race through the village on two wheels and that no one stops them.
They’ll only put their eyes out in the event of a tragedy, but even then the authorities will carry most of the blame.
— wrote another villager, summing up the mood. A post is not an investigation, and a wave of comments is not proof. But the grievance touches a real subject, with clear rules and numbers that are anything but reassuring. Here is what the law actually says — and what the data show.
From what age, and on what
The basic rule is stricter than many parents think. Under 16, a child cannot obtain any licence category — meaning they may not drive even a moped on a public road. From 16, you can obtain subcategory AM (moped, up to 45 km/h and 50 cc) and A1 (motorcycle up to 125 cc). For a larger motorcycle you need to be 18 (A2), and for the most powerful — 24 (category A).
To this are added two conditions that “the motorcycle in the yard” often skips: the vehicle must be registered, and the driver and passenger must wear a helmet. On a public road, the right to drive is proven only by the appropriate licence.
Who actually pays the fine
Here is the twist many do not know. If a child under 16 is caught driving, they bear no contravention liability — the law takes them out of the equation and refers the case to the authority for minors. The parent, however, can be fined on two counts of the Contravention Code: for handing driving to an unlicensed person (60–90 conventional units, i.e. 3,000–4,500 lei) and for failing to supervise the child (6–15 units, 300–750 lei).
If the teenager is between 16 and 18 and drives without a licence, they answer themselves — the fine for driving without a licence is 30–60 units, i.e. 1,500–3,000 lei. In short, “I got my child a motorcycle” is not a gesture without legal consequences, but one that, on a public road, still falls on the adult’s shoulders.
What the numbers show
The worry in the comments has statistical backing. Nationwide, the number of children injured in road crashes rose to about 521 in 2025, from around 429 a year earlier, according to National Bureau of Statistics data (source: the police). The peak is always in summer: in the third quarter of 2025, 186 children were injured — the highest figure in the series.
At the level of Ungheni district, official data show 23 people injured and five killed in 2024 crashes. But the territorial figures are not broken down by age or vehicle type, so there is no separate public statistic for “children on mopeds in Ungheni district” — a gap only the police could fill on request.
The police: between the “they do nothing” feeling and what is documented
The feeling that “the police do nothing” is common, but it does not hold up entirely. The National Police runs prevention campaigns every summer and explicitly urges parents to supervise, acknowledging that crashes involving children rise in the warm season. And the risk is not theoretical: in this same Ungheni district, on the Chirileni–Bușila road, a 23-year-old without a licence, on a motorcycle and at speed, struck a 12-year-old cyclist in 2023 — both died. The driver was an adult, the child the victim; the combination of “two wheels plus no licence” was fatal there too.
What remains to be learned is the part only the Ungheni Police Inspectorate can provide: how many reports of minors on motorcycles it received from the Petrești area, and what it did with them. Until an official answer, residents’ signal remains what it is — a warning that, judging by the numbers, deserves to be taken seriously.