Fatbikes are wreaking havoc in Sydney's wealthy beach suburbs (bbc.com)

> "I compare it to Covid," says Harold Scruby, the chairman of the Pedestrian Council of Australia. "It starts here and if they don't put a stop to it…" he trails off as he contemplates the apparently inexorable spread of teenagers on illegal fatbikes.

Most modern news writing needs more flourish such as this.

We're plagued by these, and by souped up electric trail bikes. Kids far too young to die or get quadriplegia, blasting around in traffic. Usually with no sense of time and place. By law they are meant to be 25kph speed capped and require pedalling. They are doing 50pkh plus and take off like a scalded cat, doing wheelies.

I'm terrified for my own safety and theirs. I can't see this ending well.

What is missing from the discussion? If you want somebody to stop what they’re doing, see how to provide/offer alternatives that meet the needs they’re getting out of what you don’t want them to do. Not very difficult to understand as a fundamental principle of life, but seemingly difficult to operate by?

Rich people inconvenienced suddenly by something that's been in other neighborhoods for years. It's serious now.

Without excusing the behaviour around illegal electric motorbikes, there has also been absolutely shocking media coverage in Australia on road deaths. Here's a summary of a particularly bad week of coverage: https://jakecoppinger.com/2025/12/why-wont-the-media-report-...

Did you notice this article doesn't have a single mention of safe bike lanes? In Australia we spend ~0.2% of our transport budget on cycling and walking infrastructure - and see very low rates of cycling (and terrible safety outcomes) as a result. See stats on the Australian situation at https://australiancyclewaystats.jakecoppinger.com/

The BBC would have done well to read up on https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pedestrian_Council_of_Australi... before seeking quotes.

Children of wealthy people, living in wealthy beach suburbs, wreaking havoc in their own neighbourhood.

They might be coming in from the slums of Vaucluse.

A lot of western Europe has a similar issue. It's not the Fatbikes per se, but what people do with it

-Harassing people -Not following Traffic rules

I actually don't think this looks that bad. I think it might even be good for them. If young people are eschewing helmets, I can see making a helmet law, but even if they take over a lane of traffic, they seem to be going in such large groups, that if they'd been in cars or other vehicles, moving in the most orderly manner imaginable, they'd be blocking the intersection just as effectively.

Consequently I think this is mostly fine. The big problems are the helmet issue and I also think they might need knee protection. 60 km/h is a bit high if they're made for 25 km/h, but most of this stuff is achievable with ordinary bicycles.

Didn't Australia recently ban social media for under 16s?

Sounds like kids are rediscovering fun and socialization in the outdoors.

Isn't this an unintended byproduct of what Australians wanted and legislated for?

They really could have added some bike lanes though.

Amsterdam also declared war against fatbikes. There are plenty of electrical bikes in Amsterdam, but only fatbikes are the problem according to the Amsterdam City Government.

It seems they are targeted as a proxy for the people who drive them, which are generally younger people.

Maybe every year we should ban the car brands with most accidents. Kinda the same idea?

This comment thread is hilarious. Split down the line of the people who are like (let kids be kids, let them have fun) and the other group being concerned about the general welfare of everyone else.

I suspect the kids do whatever they want group dont have any experience with the actual nuisance complaint but provide a knee jerk reaction. Id wager its not dissimilar to the delivery ebike nuisance in nyc - which is problematic.

Many thousands of people die every day in car crashes and this is thought to be just a fact of life as natural as the sun rising. Suddenly a couple of teenagers doing wheelies is a menace.

Just build some fucking bike lanes, all you need is literally concrete blocks and green paint. Spend a fraction of what you spend on highway widenings on this and your problem is gone.

I am in my early 40s and live in Bondi. Fatbikes are everywhere and it is absolutely NOT a problem.

99% of the time they’re used safely. It’s pretty clutch to see a kid pull a thumb trigger to do a wheelie. Besides, if you mess your bike up by dropping it, there’s no hiding it from your parents.

Article is exaggerated for the clicks.

If you find yourself getting outraged, come touch grass by touching the sand at our beautiful beach. Life is actually pretty awesome, and kids having fun & letting off steam with e-bikes is a fantastic use of technology.

It is amusing to me that we had articles about DOGE flagged but this is considered worthy of discussion.

The obvious answer is identifying plates, just as how we prevent mayhem from cars. No need to chase, just send a summons in the mail. Of course they're a privacy vulnerability, so they should really be reimagined to be something like epaper that changes every few minutes, only decodeable for bona fide purposes by the vehicle registry, with a logged audit chain. Also if you want people to respect the law then the government needs to resist the urge to use the registration as a pretext to levy fees and taxes.