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

The Event: A Prohibited Ride

A group of approximately 40 individuals riding electric bikes and motorbikes travelled along the bridge’s main deck, where cycling is prohibited. The assembly then turned around and traveled through the downtown area and a nearby district.

"This had potential for people to be injured and killed," stated a senior police official David Driver on Wednesday.

Police said they did not chase right away the group 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, authorities announced they had issued the American online personality known as Sur Ronster, twenty-six, with two violation tickets for negligent driving (not involving death or prior injury), with a fine of over five hundred dollars and penalty points each, in relation to the bridge incident. They added that the investigation is ongoing.

The personality reportedly has more than 3.4m subscribers on YouTube and over 1.2m on Instagram.

Creator's Response

The content creator gave comments to a local publication recently after the incident spread rapidly on news sites and social media, stating he regretted giving "bike life" a bad reputation.

"I’ll probably take responsibility. That was among the safest ride-outs I have witnessed," he said. "I am a visitor here, so I’m going to come here respecting the laws and norms of Sydney. When I decided to do a meet and greet it did not involve a group ride, it was just to greet people under the bridge."

"I’m unfamiliar with the city, I am to blame we found ourselves on the bridge and I had a decision to make: whether the group completes the entirety of the bridge and comes back, which is a crime. Or we turn around, basically, before we’re on the bridge. I chose at the time to turn around."

National Debate on E-Bike Regulation

The increase of e-bikes on streets across the country has sparked increasing demands for stricter rules. A senior government official, Mark Butler, commented that non-compliant electric bikes were a "total menace on the road."

"Kids have done stupid things on bikes ever since the early bicycle [but] the injuries that are coming into our ERs are absolutely devastating," he said. "We’ve got to ensure we prevent these things coming into the country [and] officers are given the powers to crack down, to take them away, to destroy them, to dispose of them."

NSW reported 226 injuries related to ebikes in 2024. But, in the first seven months of the following year, that figure surged to two hundred thirty-three injuries plus four deaths.