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NSW police have issued a fine against an American social media personality and handed out two traffic infringement notices for alleged negligent driving after a swarm of electric bicycle users gathered on the Sydney Harbour Bridge during peak-hour traffic on a weekday.

The Incident: An Illegal Gathering

A group of around 40 individuals riding electric bikes and motorbikes proceeded along the primary roadway of the bridge, an area where bicycle riding is banned. The riders subsequently reversed direction and traveled through the downtown area and Haymarket.

"This had potential for people to be injured and killed," stated NSW police assistant commissioner the officer on Wednesday.

Police said they did not immediately pursue the riders out of safety concerns but instead located the assembly at Mrs Macquarie’s Chair near the city gardens, at which point they broke up.

Penalties Issued for Content Creator

Later in the week, police stated they had issued the American online personality who goes by the influencer, twenty-six, with two traffic infringement notices for careless operation (with no death or previous bodily harm), with a fine of over five hundred dollars and three demerit points each, connected to the bridge incident. They added that the investigation is ongoing.

The personality reportedly has over 3.4m subscribers on one platform and more than 1.2 million on the social media app.

Influencer's Comments

The content creator spoke with a local publication this week following the event spread rapidly on digital platforms, saying he was sorry for giving "bike life" a negative image.

"I’ll probably take responsibility. That was among the safest ride-outs I’ve ever seen," he told the publication. "I am a visitor here, so I’m going to come here respecting the laws and norms of Sydney. So when I decided to do a public meeting it was not meant to include a ride-out, 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 two choices: whether the group rides the full length of the bridge and turns around, an illegal act. Or we reverse, basically, before entering the bridge. And I made the decision at the time to go back."

Broader Context on Electric Bike Rules

The spate of electric bicycles on roads nationwide has sparked growing calls for regulation. A senior government official, Mark Butler, commented that non-compliant electric bikes were a "complete hazard on the road."

"Young people have engaged in reckless acts on bikes since the invention of the early bicycle [but] the harm that are coming into our ERs are truly severe," he said. "We’ve got to make sure we stop these things entering the country [and] police are given the powers to crack down, to take them away, to destroy them, to destroy them."

NSW recorded 226 injuries related to ebikes in the previous year. However, in the initial half of the following year, that figure jumped to two hundred thirty-three injuries plus four deaths.