By Cassandra Morgan and Alexander Darling
An electric bike involved in a collision that left a man dead was modified to travel at up to 90km/h, police say.
The 69-year-old has become the 12th person to die in four days in a road trauma incident in Victoria.
The e-bike, which hit the man while he was walking across a busy Mornington Peninsula road on Monday night, had a battery that was held together by duct tape and cable ties, police said.
Business owners said they heard screams from the collision, which occurred on Frankston-Flinders Road in Hastings about 6.40pm. Police arrived to find the local man with life-threatening upper and lower body injuries.
The 69-year-old had been walking home from the shops, police said.
He was flown to the Royal Melbourne Hospital, where he died on Tuesday.
A 24-year-old Hastings man, who police allege was riding the modified e-bike, was taken to The Alfred with serious upper and lower body injuries.
He remained in a stable condition on Tuesday, but police said his injuries were likely to be “life-changing”.
On Tuesday afternoon, Inspector Craig McEvoy said police were still waiting to speak to the rider.
McEvoy said the e-bike had been modified to go faster.
The bike after the collision at Hastings on Monday.Credit: Nine News
“The battery has [been] increased in size,” he said. “It’s been held together with duct tape and cable ties to increase the speed and the capacity, the power wattage, of the actual bike.
“Anything that increases the power to the bike, the speed of the bike [is illegal]. If you’re riding bikes at night, we encourage [you to] have all the safety modifications, such as lighting, helmets ... so that you are visible as a cyclist.”
It is illegal to ride e-bikes in Victoria that have been modified to produce speeds above 25km/h or have a continuous power output of more than 250 watts on or near public roads.
Overpowered bikes are allowed to be imported, sold and used on private land, but not on public roads or paths.
Detectives combed the scene for evidence as both men were hospitalised.Credit: Nine News
It is not known how fast the e-bike was travelling at the time of the Hastings collision, or whether the retrofitted lighting was on.
E-bikes don’t need to be registered and riders don’t need to be licensed, provided they meet legal requirements.
Last week on radio station 3AW, former Queensland police superintendent Jim Keogh said: “It’s inevitable there’s going to be a fatality as a result of these ebikes.” Queensland police have reportedly started fining parents for buying their children e-bikes.
‘We could hear him screaming’
Police believe the bike was travelling in the left-hand lane at the time and hit the pedestrian when he tried to cross the road under some street lighting.
The bike lay crumpled off to the side of the road on bark in the aftermath of the collision, as police set up traffic cones and evidence markers. A helmet was in the dirt next to it.
One of the business owners, Jane Evans from MarShere Dance Studios, said students were just arriving for their adult social dance class on Monday evening when they heard the commotion.
“We had a massive line-up of cars,” Evans said. “[One of] the gentlemen was in quite a bit of pain. We could hear him screaming about his arm.
“[He was screaming], ‘It’s my arm, it’s my arm’.”
Bellsouth co-owner Leanne Davies said she initially dismissed the screams as teenagers or people fighting in the street, before she went to lock up and saw emergency vehicles.
“I heard screams, somebody going, ‘Ahh, ahh, ahh’,” she said. “It went on for a minute or so and then there was a bit more a bit later.”
‘Flabbergasted’
The collision followed a horror few days on Victoria’s roads: Twelve people have died since Saturday.
Eleven of these deaths have taken place since the start of National Road Safety Week on Sunday.
A Dandenong North mother was among those who died after her family’s car rolled down an embankment on Sunday. The condition of a 52-year-old man driving that car had improved to stable by Tuesday afternoon.
The road trauma continued on Tuesday: There was a fatal crash at Wangaratta South about 12.30am, when a driver – the sole occupant of their vehicle – left the road and crashed into trees. The driver died at the scene.
On Tuesday night, police confirmed a homeless man found with serious injuries on the side of the Western Highway in Cobblebank early on Thursday, May 8, had died.
Not included in the road toll was a 61-year-old driver, who crashed into a fence at Kurunjang, west of Melbourne, and died in what police believe was a medical episode.
McEvoy said police were “flabbergasted” by the current rate of road trauma.
“Our members are resilient, but it’s still exposing them to some graphic scenes and some difficult conversations with families, with victims, with witnesses, with anybody who’s involved.”
Police urged anyone with footage of the Hastings collision to come forward.
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