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NSW police have levied a penalty against an American social media personality and handed out two driving violation citations for alleged negligent driving following a large group of e-bike riders converged on the Sydney Harbour Bridge during peak-hour traffic on a weekday.

The Incident: A Prohibited Ride

A group of approximately 40 people riding e-bikes and motorcycles travelled along the bridge’s main deck, where cycling is prohibited. The riders then turned around and rode through the downtown area and Haymarket.

"There was a risk of people to be injured and killed," remarked a senior police official David Driver on the following day.

Police said they did not chase right away the riders out of safety concerns but rather found the group at Mrs Macquarie’s Chair near the city gardens, at which point they broke up.

Fines Imposed for Influencer

On Saturday, police announced they had served the US social media influencer known as the influencer, twenty-six, with two traffic infringement notices for negligent driving (not involving death or prior injury), with a fine of over five hundred dollars and three demerit points per notice, in relation to the bridge incident. Officials noted that the investigation is ongoing.

The influencer reportedly has over 3.4m followers on one platform and more than 1.2m on the social media app.

Influencer's Comments

The content creator spoke with a major newspaper this week after the incident spread rapidly on news sites and social media, stating he was sorry for giving "bike life" a bad reputation.

"I’ll probably take responsibility. It was among the safest ride-outs I have witnessed," he told the publication. "I am a visitor here, and I intend to abide by the laws and norms of the city. So when I decided to do a meet and greet it did not involve a group ride, it was just to say hi under the bridge."

"I’m unfamiliar with the city, it was my fault we found ourselves on the bridge and I had a decision to make: either the group rides the full length of the bridge and comes back, an illegal act. Or we turn around, basically, before entering the bridge. And I made the decision at the time to turn around."

Broader Context on E-Bike Regulation

The increase of e-bikes on streets across the country has prompted growing calls for stricter rules. The federal health minister, Mark Butler, commented that illegal ebikes were a "total menace on the road."

"Young people have engaged in stupid things on bikes since the invention of the penny-farthing [but] the injuries that are presenting at our hospital emergency departments are absolutely devastating," he said. "We must make sure we stop these things entering the country [and] officers are given the authority to crack down, to confiscate them, to crush them, to destroy them."

NSW reported 226 injuries associated with electric bikes in the previous year. But, in the first seven months of the following year, that number surged to 233 injuries plus four deaths.