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New South Wales police have issued a fine against an US-based online influencer and handed out two traffic infringement notices for alleged negligent driving after a large group of electric bicycle users converged on the Sydney Harbour Bridge during the busy commute on Tuesday.

The Event: A Prohibited Ride

A group of around 40 individuals operating electric bikes and motorbikes travelled along the primary roadway of the bridge, where cycling is prohibited. The assembly then turned around and rode through the downtown area and Haymarket.

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

Law enforcement said they did not chase right away the riders due to 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

On Saturday, police announced they had issued the American online personality known as the influencer, twenty-six, with two traffic infringement notices for careless operation (not involving death or prior injury), carrying a fine of over five hundred dollars and three demerit points each, in relation to the bridge incident. They added that inquiries were continuing.

The personality is said to have more than 3.4 million subscribers on YouTube and more than 1.2 million on the social media app.

Creator's Response

The content creator spoke with a major newspaper recently following the event spread rapidly on digital platforms, saying he was sorry for giving "the biking community" a negative image.

"I’ll probably take responsibility. It was among the safest gatherings I’ve ever seen," he said. "I’m coming here as a guest, and I intend to come here respecting the laws and norms of Sydney. When I decided to do a public meeting 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: either the group rides the full length of the bridge and turns around, which is a crime. Or we reverse, basically, before we’re on the bridge. I chose at the time to turn around."

National Debate on E-Bike Regulation

The spate of electric bicycles on streets across the country has prompted increasing demands for regulation. The federal health minister, the minister, recently said that illegal ebikes were a "complete hazard on the road."

"Kids have done reckless acts on bikes since the invention of the penny-farthing [but] the injuries that are coming into our ERs are truly severe," he said. "We’ve got to make sure we stop these things coming into the country [and] police are granted the authority to crack down, to confiscate them, to destroy them, to dispose of them."

NSW reported over two hundred injuries associated with ebikes in the previous year. However, in the initial half of the following year, that figure surged to two hundred thirty-three injuries plus four fatalities.