00:00Well, for more, I'm joined now by the CEO of Bicycle New South Wales, Peter McLean.
00:07Peter, thank you so much for your time this morning.
00:10What do you make of this announcement by the government?
00:15Well, we really applaud the government for starting to take some really strong action
00:19here.
00:20We've seen a lot of problems for some years now, and we basically, we have to stop these
00:26high-powered, high-speed illegal devices from being able to be freely driven on our streets.
00:33The police certainly need the powers to do something about it.
00:37Part of this announcement is about those speed cameras or portable speed detection devices
00:42that will be rolled out across this city.
00:45We don't have a lot of detail on where exactly that would take place.
00:50Do you have an idea of sort of where you think that would be most useful?
00:54Well, there isn't a lot of detail around that.
00:59However, I mean, common sense would say that it's going to be targeted on some of those
01:04hotspots where we're seeing large quantities of these illegal devices being ridden on a
01:09regular basis.
01:10Some of our beach, coastal suburbs, for example, would be key hotspots, if I could suggest that.
01:17But what our position really is, is really been pushing the federal and the state government
01:22to adopt the European standards, EN 15194.
01:26And once we have that in place, where we can really understand, it's going to be black
01:32and white, of what is legal and what's not, what's safe and what's not, and we'll be riding
01:37much safer, more compliant devices more regularly.
01:40Realistically, is there much of a difference between an e-bike, which you don't need a
01:48licence, and a scooter or a motorbike, which you obviously do?
01:55There is a huge difference.
01:58A legal e-bike in New South Wales is pedal assist powered up to the speed of 25 kilometres
02:04an hour, and it'll be soon changed to 250 watts.
02:07Some of those illegal devices, they're not e-motorbikes, and they're certainly not e-bikes,
02:13because they can't be classified as each.
02:15Some of those are thousands of watts in power and will go up to 80 kilometres an hour, making
02:20them really, really incredibly dangerous.
02:23Yeah, we're seeing some of these pictures of that incident earlier this week on the Sydney
02:29Harbour Bridge.
02:30A lot of these riders appear to be quite young as well, likely inexperienced on the roads.
02:38What was your reaction when you saw that incident taking place?
02:43I was absolutely horrified to see this take place on such an important landmark.
02:50They don't understand the risk that they're putting on themselves, but also all other road
02:54users as well.
02:55Unfortunately, we've already seen a number of serious incidences and, unfortunately, fatalities,
03:01and it absolutely terrifies me that we're going to almost certainly see some more if
03:05this sort of dangerous activity takes place.
03:07When you've got cases of, you know, unlicensed, often underage and likely uninsured e-bike
03:16riders getting into crashes and accidents, and as you mentioned, there are fatalities that
03:21we've seen in New South Wales as well.
03:25Who takes responsibility in terms of the insurance when these incidents happen?
03:32Well, initially, probably the driver involved or the other person who has the insurance,
03:40but very, very quickly, and we're starting to see this, the insurance company will ensure
03:46ensure that they chase that money and recover the costs from the parent if they're an underage
03:53person.
03:54So for those parents out there that are buying these devices for their kids, they need to
03:58be really, really mindful that they almost imminently face a legal risk at the same time.
04:05A lot more to come on this story, no doubt, I'm sure.
04:09Peter, thank you so much for joining us today.
04:11I really appreciate your insights.
04:13You're always welcome.
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