Man slams court ruling for drunk e-bike ride

EXCLUSIVE

A Sydney man who copped a 12-month suspension on his driver’s license and a $600 fine after drunkenly riding an e-bike over the Sydney Harbour Bridge has blasted a court ruling that deemed the bicycle to be a “vehicle”.

Redfern man Paul Fortuna, 38, was charged with high-range drink driving after he crashed his e-bike on the Sydney Harbour Bridge after drinking with friends at a pub in North Sydney last September.

Mr Fortuna, who is the manager of a courier company, seriously injured his head during the crash and was transported to Royal North Shore Hospital where a blood sample was taken.

The blood sample showed he had a reading of 0.152 – more than three times the legal blood alcohol limit.

A few weeks later, Mr Fortuna received a court notice in the mail notifying him he had been charged with the use or attempted use of a vehicle under the influence of alcohol.

He was handed a $600 fine, a 12-month suspension of his license and ordered to have an interlock device on his car for two years.

Mr Fortuna appealed the matter in court last week and managed to have the interlock device order quashed, however, the court still deemed the e-bike a “vehicle”.

Interlock devices require the driver of a motor vehicle to return a legal breath sample limit before starting the ignition.

He said the laws around e-bikes needed to be “cleaned up”.

“They basically haven’t differentiated between an e-bike and a car. I think almost everyone in Australia has been on an e-bike after drinking,” he said, pointing out he was riding in a bike lane, not on the road.

“On a Saturday night you see all the young kids on the e-bikes. I used to ride everywhere, have a beer or two and drive home, but now it’s just not worth it.”

Mr Fortuna said he felt he was being “punished for” having a driver’s license and questioned how someone without one would be equally penalised.

Under the current laws, police cannot breath test an e-bike rider unless they have been involved in a crash.

“The law should be fair for everyone, but here the law is unfair if you hold a car license.”

During the original sentence in March, Downing Central Local Court Magistrate Julie Zaki said her hands were “tied” due to the legislation.

“It is a strange situation,” she said.

“I just don’t have a choice that’s the minimum disqualification that attaches to that. So while I am sympathetic, just given the circumstances and that it is an e-bike, there’s nothing really I can do.”

Mr Fortuna’s lawyer Maurice Baroni called it a “quirk of the legislation”.

“It is, unfortunately,” Magistrate Zaki said.

During the appeal last week, Judge Troy Anderson SC said the e-bike was a vehicle under the current legislation which is anything “on wheels”.

“An E-bike comes within that definition,” he stated in the decision.

However, he determined an e-bike did not meet the definition with NSW’s Road Transport Act and thus could not be subject to the mandatory interlock.