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NSW authorities have levied a penalty against an American social media personality and served two traffic infringement notices for alleged negligent driving after a swarm of e-bike riders gathered on the Sydney Harbour Bridge during peak-hour traffic on Tuesday.

The Incident: A Prohibited Ride

A gathering of approximately 40 individuals riding e-bikes and motorcycles travelled along the bridge’s main deck, where cycling is prohibited. The riders subsequently reversed direction and rode through the city’s CBD and a nearby district.

"This had potential for people to be injured and killed," stated a senior police official the officer on the following day.

Police said they did not immediately pursue the riders out of concerns for public safety but instead located the assembly at a scenic Sydney lookout near the Botanic Gardens, where they dispersed.

Penalties Issued for Content Creator

Later in the week, police stated they had issued the American online personality known as the influencer, twenty-six, with two traffic infringement notices for careless operation (with no death or previous bodily harm), carrying a penalty of over five hundred dollars and penalty points each, in relation to the bridge ride-out. They added that the investigation is ongoing.

The influencer reportedly has over 3.4m followers on one platform and over 1.2m on Instagram.

Influencer's Comments

The online figure spoke with a local publication recently following the event gained traction on digital platforms, saying he regretted giving "the biking community" a bad reputation.

"I’ll probably take responsibility. It was among the safest ride-outs I’ve ever seen," he said. "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 public meeting it was not meant to include a ride-out, it was just to say hi near the bridge."

"I’m unfamiliar with the city, it was my fault we ended up on the bridge and I had two choices: either the group completes the entirety of the bridge and comes back, which is a crime. Or we reverse, basically, before entering the bridge. And I made the decision at the time to go back."

Broader Context on E-Bike Regulation

The spate of e-bikes on streets across the country has sparked growing calls for regulation. The federal health minister, Mark Butler, recently said that non-compliant electric bikes were a "complete hazard on the road."

"Kids have done stupid things on bikes since the invention of the penny-farthing [but] the harm that are presenting at our hospital emergency departments are absolutely devastating," he said. "We’ve got to ensure we stop these things coming into the country [and] police are granted the authority to crack down, to take them away, to crush them, to destroy them."

The state reported 226 injuries associated with ebikes in 2024. But, in the first seven months of 2025, that number jumped to 233 injuries plus four fatalities.