Western Australian Police have shared footage of e-bikes and scooters being crushed after confiscating them from teenagers.
Officers have seized and destroyed dozens of illegal rideables from Perth‘s northern suburbs since January in a dramatic show of force under Operation Moorhead.
The operation was triggered by public complaints about children tearing through suburban streets on electric scooters and off-road bikes, intimidating pedestrians, flouting traffic laws, and sparking near-misses with cars.
Police have confiscated 36 bikes and scooters from kids aged 11 to 16, warning parents they could face hefty fines if the chaos continues.
In some cases, teens on e-bikes hurled objects at other vehicles and posted videos of their pranks on social media.
WA Police Commissioner Col Blanch put riders on notice late last year, confirming e-bikes with a maximum speed of more than 25km/h were considered unregistered motorcycles.
Riders must also be over 16.
‘When they don’t meet the criteria of an e-rideable, they are purely an unregistered motorcycle,’ Police Commissioner Blanch said.
WA cops are cracking down on unruly teenagers riding e bikes in a targeted operation
WA Police are seizing and destroying e-rideables during Operation Moorhead
‘I think a lot of people purchasing these things think they are legal, and they are e-rideables, but unless they are quite slow, these are unregistered motorcyclists.
‘They are going to be seized and destroyed every single time, there is no giving them back, they are always heading to the crusher because they are not able to meet the registration requirements of state vehicles.’
Residents in coastal suburbs, including Hillarys, Sorrento, Quinns Rocks, Butler and Mullaloo have taken to social media to express their frustrations about ‘ride-outs’, where riders meet up to drive dangerously and antagonise the public.
‘Reports indicated that riders were allegedly engaging in antisocial behaviour across the district, including throwing objects at people and vehicles, intimidating members of the public, riding recklessly on public roads, evading police, and posting their actions on social media,’ a WA Police spokesman said.
Previous vision from residents in Perth’s north has shown young children lobbing water balloons and rocks at cars, driving in packs along busy 70km/h Marmion Avenue and driving on footpaths at top speed.
And it’s not just Perth feeling the heat. Across the country, the e-bike crisis is escalating.
Teenager Lucas Reid died after he crashed his e-bike in Tasmania on New Year’s Eve, despite frantic attempts by a witness to save his life.
Lucas had narrowly avoided death four years earlier when he sustained serious injuries in the Hillcrest jumping castle tragedy that killed six children when the inflatable castle was lifted 10m into the air by a gust of wind in 2021.
Acting Inspector Scott Gillis (pictured) is urging parents to closely monitor their children’s use of e-rideables
WA Police have seized more than 30 e-bikes as part of the operation
Meanwhile in New South Wales, fresh calls are mounting for mandatory number plates after two shocking incidents in Sydney where teenagers on e-bikes slammed into cars fueling fears this lawless trend is spiraling out of control nationwide
Two 16-year-olds were struck by a Mercedes-Benz on Birrell Street in Bondi, Sydney’s eastern suburbs, on Tuesday while riding e-bikes.
The driver of the vehicle was uninjured and the pair escaped with only minor injuries before being taken to Sydney Children’s Hospital.
The same day in Crows Nest, on Sydney’s Lower North Shore, three 15-year-olds on an e-bike were lucky to walk away with only minor injuries after they were struck by a car.
The NSW government recently introduced new safety laws reducing the power and speed of e-bikes; however, NSW opposition transport spokeswoman Natalie Ward said more could be done.
Ward believes that licence plates for specific groups, including people under 18, are a necessary step to minimise the number of e-bike crashes.
‘For young riders, accountability can’t just be a trip to the hospital emergency room,’ Ward told the Sydney Morning Herald.
‘The overwhelming community view is to take action on these unaccountable rider cohorts who need enforcement and behaviour change before it is too late.’
An inquiry into the safety, regulation and penalties associated with e-rideables in WA was triggered following the death of Thanh Phan in Perth’s CBD earlier this year, when the Perth father was struck by an e-scooter being ridden by a drunk tourist from the UK.
