Acting Inspector Bradyn Murphy | Gold Coast E Bike Situation

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
Good morning, How are you well, we're all great, but
we're worried about our kids, and we're also worried about
people driving their cars being hit by balloons filled with rocks.
But we thought we'd asked the question, first of all,
what are the laws for e bikes in our city
and in our state?

Speaker 2 (00:16):
So an e bike by definition has to be a
bike that has to be pedled, and it has to
be a bike that's the power output.

Speaker 3 (00:23):
Does not exceed two hundred and fifty watts.

Speaker 2 (00:25):
It's a bit of a tricky one because obviously we
had you know, how do we know how much of
a bike's powered by?

Speaker 3 (00:30):
But you'll see a lot of the bikes getting around.
If they're doing anywhere over.

Speaker 2 (00:34):
Say thirty forty kilometers an now, then they've been modified
to go more than.

Speaker 3 (00:39):
Like that two hundred and fifty watts.

Speaker 2 (00:40):
And also a lot of the kids, if they're not
peddling and they've got a throttle on the bike, then
that's an illegal e bike as well. They're everywhere, they
are everywhere, they are absolutely everywhere.

Speaker 1 (00:50):
So what are you what are you seeing then, and
what are you able to do?

Speaker 3 (00:54):
Well?

Speaker 2 (00:54):
The problem is for us is that you know we're
dealing with juveniles as well, so you know, and I
know the question always on me, what are the plea
doing about this?

Speaker 3 (01:01):
I'd like to put it back and say, what are
the parents doing about this?

Speaker 2 (01:03):
They're buying these five six, seven thousand dollars bikes, which
some of them are straight out motorcycles. They've got no pedals,
they're little trial bike.

Speaker 3 (01:11):
The parents, who surely got to take some responsibility, walk
out to.

Speaker 2 (01:14):
The garage or whether they have these bikes and go, hey,
you know, we need to look at what you're riding
and why you're riding on the road. And the problem
is that you know, they all think they're you know,
bill a proof and that sort of stuff, and as
we see, they're far from it. Okay.

Speaker 4 (01:27):
So I mean there's two issues here. There's the danger
of riding them carelessly and in amongst traffic and in groups.
But there's the other thing where there are big groups
of kids on those bikes and they're now starting to
get a little bit arrogant with the fact that they
know no one can catch them when we're playing up.
And then there's ring leaders that are causing mayhem to

(01:49):
our traffic because in a couple of points across the city,
near Pisey Park, down at Palm Beach near Monaco Street,
there are kids throwing items at cars and baiting almost
people to come out and try and chase them.

Speaker 2 (02:03):
Absolutely, and we had an operation a couple of days
ago where we have some playing clothes officers that sort
of you know, hang around the park and then watch
these kids and grab them when they stop. You know,
we see probably three or four e bites. The other
day we had about five parents come down and grab
the bits of their kids.

Speaker 3 (02:20):
So we are you know, we are trying.

Speaker 2 (02:22):
To obviously you know, adhere to get these kids to
adhere to the law. But as you know, the kids
that hang around in groups, you know, like I said,
they have a sense of arrogance about them. And you know,
even when we have a fatality, it doesn't seem to
change their mindset.

Speaker 1 (02:34):
So what do you need the government to do to
help you.

Speaker 2 (02:38):
The importation of these things is a real problem. But
you know, we're looking at a whole government response to that,
and I think, to be honest with we're probably a
little bit late in the game for that sort of
thing because there's so many bites out there. And you
know they're just going to be infiltrated on Facebook marketplace.
Now you'll be able to pick up a cheaper one
for maybe a couple of thousand dollars.

Speaker 4 (02:55):
You talked about responsibility, it's getting to the stage where
the responsibility is keeping other citizen insane. And it's getting
to this stage where you're going to get someone that's
going to be an adult that wants conflict with these kids,
and someone's going to get hurt, and you can see
it leading to either way, there's going to be more
of a problem there.

Speaker 2 (03:14):
So yeah, look, I hope to agree with you, Galley,
and that's where the I guess the line that we
have to adhere to. You know, we have policies and procedures,
and those policies and procedures restrict us to doing certain things.
By the same time, you know, we're not going to
put other lives at risk, and especially the kids.

Speaker 3 (03:30):
You know, we've got to think.

Speaker 2 (03:31):
About them, even though they are probably half a brain
of a watermelon, you know, to try and you know,
we still have to keep them safe. That's the ultimate
goal for us as well. You know, we've got to
keep everybody safe, including them.

Speaker 3 (03:41):
That is Acting Inspector Brada Murphy, thanks for your time
this morning. Thank you,