00:02Like many Australians, Sam Hoskerson has nervously watched fuel prices rise.
00:07Every day when I was driving to work I was seeing it go up 10, 15 cents a litre.
00:12I was feeling quite anxious about it when you don't know where it's going to stop.
00:17When his diesel vehicle started to cost $100 more per week, it became an easy decision to invest in an
00:24e-bike.
00:24I don't think I would have done it without the rising cost of fuel to be that little push you
00:28needed to get a bike.
00:30Dennis Lightfoot has sold bikes in Perth for 35 years and saw a spike in e-bike sales after fuel
00:36prices skyrocketed.
00:38We've gone from sort of selling three or four a week to somewhere like I think in the last 10
00:46days we did close to 30 electric bikes.
00:49The retailers increased demand reminiscent of a trend seen in COVID.
00:53I think the fuel prices have pushed some people into doing it and they were thinking about it.
00:58where we're getting a lot of people that never even thought about getting an electric bike.
01:03We've looked at main roads data in WA to gauge the number of people changing their daily commute,
01:09but no clear trend has emerged on key bike paths or traffic routes yet.
01:13On the East Coast, a Transport NSW spokesperson confirmed networks there are seeing impacts from global events.
01:21A national industry body says there should be improvement to cycle networks to meet growth.
01:27So we've got both the people buying the bikes,
01:30but we also need the governments to invest in the safe, connected infrastructure
01:34that allows this change to continue and to be used long after the changes in the fuel price.
01:39Time will tell whether a lifestyle change for some becomes a permanent fixture.
01:44Time will ever be used on key CAMGA.
01:44Here we go.
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