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

The Incident: An Illegal Gathering

A gathering of around 40 individuals operating 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 rode through the city’s CBD and a nearby district.

"This had a risk of people to be injured and killed," remarked a senior police official the officer on Wednesday.

Law enforcement said they did not immediately pursue the riders due to safety concerns but instead located the assembly at a scenic Sydney lookout near the city gardens, at which point they broke up.

Penalties Issued for Influencer

Later in the week, police stated they had served the American online personality known as the influencer, twenty-six, with two violation tickets for negligent driving (not involving death or prior injury), carrying a fine of $562 and penalty points each, connected to the bridge incident. They added that the investigation is ongoing.

The personality is said to have over 3.4m followers on YouTube and more than 1.2 million on Instagram.

Creator's Response

The content creator spoke with a major newspaper this week after the incident spread rapidly on digital platforms, stating he was sorry for giving "the biking community" a bad reputation.

"I accept the blame. That was one of the safest ride-outs I have witnessed," he told the publication. "I am a visitor here, and I intend to come here respecting the laws and norms of the city. When I decided to do a meet and greet it was not meant to include a ride-out, it was just to greet people under the bridge."

"I did not know the area well, I am to blame we found ourselves on the bridge and I had a decision to make: either the group completes the entirety of the bridge and comes back, which is a crime. Or we turn around, essentially, before we’re on the bridge. And I made the decision at the time to turn around."

Broader Context on Electric Bike Rules

The spate of electric bicycles on roads nationwide has sparked growing calls for regulation. A senior government official, the minister, recently said that illegal ebikes were a "total menace on the road."

"Kids have done reckless acts on bikes since the invention of the penny-farthing [but] the harm that are presenting at our ERs are truly severe," the minister said. "We’ve got to make sure we stop these things coming into the country [and] officers are granted the powers to take strong action, to confiscate them, to destroy them, to destroy them."

NSW reported 226 injuries related to electric bikes in the previous year. But, in the initial half of 2025, that number jumped to 233 injuries plus four deaths.