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NSW authorities have levied a penalty against an US-based online influencer and handed out two traffic infringement notices for alleged negligent driving after a swarm of e-bike riders gathered on the Sydney Harbour Bridge during peak-hour traffic on a weekday.

The Incident: An Illegal Gathering

A gathering of approximately 40 people operating electric bikes and motorbikes travelled along the bridge’s main deck, an area where bicycle riding is banned. The assembly subsequently reversed direction and rode through the city’s CBD and a nearby district.

"There was a risk of serious injury or fatalities," stated a senior police official the officer on the following day.

Police said they did not immediately pursue the riders out of concerns for public safety but rather found the group at a scenic Sydney lookout near the city gardens, where they dispersed.

Penalties Issued for Influencer

Later in the week, police announced they had issued the US social media influencer known as the influencer, twenty-six, with two traffic infringement notices for negligent driving (with no death or previous bodily harm), with a fine of over five hundred dollars and penalty points each, connected to the bridge ride-out. Officials noted that the investigation is ongoing.

The influencer is said to have over 3.4 million followers on YouTube and over 1.2 million on the social media app.

Creator's Response

The content creator gave comments to a local publication recently following the event gained traction on digital platforms, stating he regretted giving "bike life" a bad reputation.

"I accept the blame. That was one of the safest gatherings I have witnessed," he said. "I am a visitor here, so I’m going to come here respecting the rules and standards of the city. So when I decided to do a meet and greet it was not meant to include a group ride, it was just to say hi under the bridge."

"I’m unfamiliar with the city, I am to blame we ended up on the bridge and I had a decision to make: whether the group completes the entirety of the bridge and turns around, an illegal act. Or we reverse, essentially, before we’re on the bridge. And I made the decision at the time to go back."

National Debate on E-Bike Regulation

The spate of e-bikes on streets across the country has sparked increasing demands for regulation. The federal health minister, Mark Butler, recently said that illegal ebikes were a "total menace on the road."

"Young people have engaged in reckless acts on bikes since the invention of the penny-farthing [but] the harm that are presenting at our hospital emergency departments are truly severe," the minister said. "We’ve got to make sure we stop these things coming into the country [and] officers are given the powers to crack down, to take them away, to destroy them, to destroy them."

The state recorded 226 injuries associated with ebikes in the previous year. However, in the first seven months of the following year, that number surged to two hundred thirty-three injuries plus four deaths.