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NSW authorities have levied a penalty against an US-based online influencer and served two traffic infringement notices for alleged negligent driving following a large group of electric bicycle users converged on the Sydney Harbour Bridge during peak-hour traffic on Tuesday.

The Event: A Prohibited Ride

A group of approximately 40 individuals riding e-bikes and motorcycles travelled along the primary roadway of the bridge, an area where bicycle riding is banned. The riders subsequently reversed direction and traveled through the city’s CBD and Haymarket.

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

Law enforcement indicated they did not chase right away the riders out of concerns for public safety but instead located the assembly at Mrs Macquarie’s Chair near the Botanic Gardens, at which point they broke up.

Fines Imposed for Influencer

Later in the week, police announced they had served the US social media influencer who goes by the influencer, twenty-six, with two violation tickets for careless operation (not involving death or prior injury), with a penalty of over five hundred dollars and penalty points per notice, in relation to the bridge incident. They added that inquiries were continuing.

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

Influencer's Comments

The content creator gave comments to a local publication recently following the event spread rapidly on digital platforms, saying he was sorry for giving "bike life" a bad reputation.

"I’ll probably take responsibility. It was among the safest gatherings I have witnessed," he told the publication. "I’m coming here as a guest, and I intend to come here respecting the rules and standards of the city. So when I decided to do a public meeting it did not involve a ride-out, it was just to greet people 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 comes back, which is a crime. Or we reverse, essentially, before we’re on the bridge. I chose at the time to go back."

Broader Context on Electric Bike Rules

The spate of e-bikes on roads nationwide has prompted growing calls for stricter rules. A senior government official, 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 early bicycle [but] the injuries that are coming into our ERs are truly severe," the minister stated. "We’ve got to make sure we prevent these things entering the country [and] police are granted the powers to crack down, to take them away, to crush them, to dispose of them."

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