Kids on souped up e bikes tearing down the footpath at fifty. Lithium batteries exploding in bedrooms. Politicians shrugging and saying it is a state issue. In this episode of The West Report we track how a quiet legal tweak by Barnaby Joyce helped turn Australia into the wild west of e bikes, and why kids are paying the price. 
We break down
• How Australia once followed strict European e bike standards, and why those rules were scrapped in 2021
• The explosion in cheap, overpowered imports and the rise in hospitalisations, deaths and lithium battery fires
• Why Dirodie style bikes and easy mods make it simple for kids to bypass speed and power limits
• The patchwork mess of state rules, and what Catherine King and Sophie Scamps are trying to fix
• How we can get the best of e bikes, freedom and accessibility, without turning every main street into a crash site
As an e bike owner, I am not here to blame kids popping wheelies on Boxing Day. The real story is a decade of bad regulation, weak enforcement and governments that waited for tragedy instead of acting when the warnings first came in.
If you are looking at buying an e bike for yourself or your kids this Christmas, watch this before you tap buy now.
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Michael West established Michael West Media in 2016 to focus on journalism of high public interest, particularly the rising power of corporations over democracy. West was formerly a journalist and editor with Fairfax newspapers, a columnist for News Corp and even, once, a stockbroker.
