‘Be careful’: Gold Coast driver’s message for e-bike riders after Palm Beach crash
A young Gold Coast driver is urging parents and kids to be careful after a reckless e-bike rider smashed into her car, landing himself and his passenger in hospital.
A young driver has slammed reckless e-bike hoons after a rider failed to give way and smashed into her car, embedding a piece of flesh into the glass and sending two teens to hospital.
Poppi Watson, 19, was driving on Tahiti Ave, Palm Beach, on Friday afternoon to jump-start a friend’s car when two e-bikes cut across the intersection from Laguna Ave, where she had right of way.
“They’ve just gone flying in front of me and by the time I’ve seen them and stopped, [one] hit the front of my car,” Poppi recalled.
The P-plater avoided one bike, but despite braking and swerving, the other e-bike hit her car’s left side, denting the bonnet, crushing the windscreen, and embedding a slice of flesh into the glass.
She says the e-bike was carrying two teenage boys with the passenger, who was not wearing a helmet, bearing the brunt of the injuries.
“I was in shock but I was still very calm,” said Poppi, who used a rug from her car to act as a cushion for the injured child.
“But there were a lot of people around that saw it and were able to come and help which was really good.”
Soon after, she noticed the e-bike had been whisked away by the teen’s friends, with the teenager who was driving the bike allegedly saying, “Don’t call the cops, they’re going to impound my bike”.
Poppi said the driver apologised and told her he was looking at his phone while riding through the intersection.
A Queensland Ambulance Service spokeswoman confirmed paramedics were called around 6pm and two boys were transported to Gold Coast University Hospital, one with head and foot injuries.
Poppi and her father waited more than an hour for police at the scene, with officers arriving after she had gone home and long after paramedics, the tow truck, and the boy’s parents had left.
A Queensland Police Service (QPS) spokeswoman confirmed police were investigating the crash, appealing for anyone with relevant information, CCTV, or dashcam vision to come forward.
In response to questions regarding any delay, the QPS spokeswoman said ‘calls for service’ must be triaged based on the threat to life and safety first, and on the information that is provided by the caller at the time.
“Officers are deployed to urgent priority matters first,”she said. “In this instance, initial information provided to police at 6.06pm was that all parties involved were conscious, breathing and alert, there were no critical injuries, and that the vehicles involved posed no ongoing risk to public safety.”
Police attended the scene at 7.29pm and have since made contact with all parties involved.
Poppi’s message for e-bike riders on the Gold Coast is be more careful.
“I feel like people just aren’t taking seriously how dangerous it can be,” she said. “Just caring more about what you’re doing because it could have been a lot worse than that.
“Parents aren’t caring enough to make sure their kids are doing the right thing. [These bikes] are $3000 plus things and they’re just handed to kids like it’s nothing. I just think they need to really reassess, [if their kid is] responsible enough to be driving an e-bike.”
E-bike concerns
That night, 13 people across Queensland were rushed to hospitals due to e-bike and e-scooter accidents in a 12-hour window.
Electric bikes and e-scooters have been a growing concern for the local community following a recent spate of tragic deaths.
Poppi’s parents Andrew and Renee Watson can recall a handful of worrying experiences from riders travelling against traffic on one-way streets, bikes travelling at speed with no helmet to one rider throwing an item at their other daughter
“It doesn’t matter if you can afford [e-bikes], it matters if your kid’s ready to be responsible with an item like that,” Andrew said. “My thing is, are you going to educate them on what the e-bike laws are?”
He said he believes there needs to be greater education for children on e-bikes and their parents.
“If we drive our car on the road, we come under licensing, we come under road rules. These kids have no limits. It seems like it’s a free-for-all. Even a bike rider on a pedal bike has to follow certain rules but the e-bikes just seem to be doing whatever they want.”
The family said they weren’t against e-bikes but Renee said there needed to be some governance around legislation.
“There’s nothing to protect innocent people who get hurt,” she said.
After the incident, Renee posted on a local Facebook page, thanking those that stopped to help and warning the community about e-bikes coming into the festive season.
The post had a massive online response with others sharing their own experiences in the comments, however it was also seen by the teenage rider’s parent.
Poppi had been in contact with the e-bike rider’s mother, who had previously offered to pay her car insurance excess.
On Saturday evening, the mother texted Poppi that she would be letting police deal with the issue since Renee wanted “to be a keyboard warrior” trying to “get sympathy from strangers”.
It complicates the already frustrating process for Poppi, whose car may be written off with an insurance payout at market value, not her higher original purchase price.
She had saved up for the car while in high school, working weekends and nights to make her first major purchase.
“It’s just frustrating because my life is at a stop,” she said. “I have to go and spend time trying to get myself back up, get a car … and it’s like they don’t have to do that. Your e-bike gets taken off you and that’s your consequence.”
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Originally published as ‘Be careful’: Gold Coast driver’s message for e-bike riders after Palm Beach crash
