Skirted Cycling the Latest NYC Biking 'Crime'
Bicyclists in New York City can't ride outside the painted lines of bike lanes, or ride inside the painted lines of bike lanes, or bike-while-foreign, or even ride near Fox News employees. Now biking in a skirt isn't allowed, either.
Jasmijn Rijcken, 31, a bike company general manager from the Netherlands, found this out early last month while she was visiting NYC for the New Amsterdam Bike Show. While riding a bike around town, she encountered a New York Police Department officer who stopped her and told her that her legs—which were not entirely covered by her skirt, for some reason—were "distracting the cars." This made her exposed limbs a source of danger to everyone in the immediate area, and probably also the city.
"I thought he was joking around but he got angry and asked me for ID," she told the Daily News—which informatively describes her outfit as "sexy." The officer didn't write her a ticket, but did shake her up enough so that she went back to her hotel room and put on some pants. In doing so, she probably saved a few lives.
So there it is, skirt-wearing cycle-ladies of NYC: wear pants, and no cops will harass you (at least for committing skirt-related felonies). Just don't wear tight pants, because that might be a crime as well. "Oh, but wearing pants all summer could get sooooo hot," you complain. Well, maybe it's time to invest in some modest culottes.