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NSW police have issued a fine against an US-based online influencer and served two driving violation citations for alleged reckless operation after a swarm of e-bike riders gathered on the Sydney Harbour Bridge during the busy commute on a weekday.

The Event: An Illegal Gathering

A gathering of approximately 40 people operating electric bikes and motorbikes travelled along the bridge’s main deck, an area where bicycle riding is banned. The riders subsequently reversed direction and traveled through the city’s CBD and Haymarket.

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

Police said they did not immediately pursue the riders out of concerns for public safety but rather found the assembly at a scenic Sydney lookout near the city gardens, at which point they broke up.

Fines Imposed for Content Creator

Later in the week, police announced they had issued the US social media influencer who goes by Sur Ronster, 26, 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 incident. They added that the investigation is ongoing.

The influencer reportedly has more than 3.4 million subscribers on YouTube and more than 1.2m on the social media app.

Creator's Response

The content creator gave comments to a major newspaper this week after the incident spread rapidly on digital platforms, saying he regretted giving "the biking community" a negative image.

"I’ll probably take responsibility. It was among the safest gatherings I have witnessed," he told the publication. "I am a visitor here, and I intend to come here respecting the rules and standards of Sydney. When I decided to do a meet and greet 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 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 reverse, essentially, before we’re on the bridge. And I made the decision at the time to go back."

National Debate on Electric Bike Rules

The increase of electric bicycles on streets across the country has sparked increasing demands for stricter rules. The federal health minister, the minister, recently said that non-compliant electric bikes were a "complete hazard on the road."

"Young people have engaged in reckless acts on bikes ever since the penny-farthing [but] the harm that are coming into our hospital emergency departments are absolutely devastating," the minister said. "We’ve got to ensure we prevent these things entering the country [and] officers are granted the authority to crack down, to confiscate them, to crush them, to destroy them."

The state recorded over two hundred injuries related to 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 deaths.