No winking at women, no cycling in swimming pools — Crazy cycling laws from around the world

Looked at from outside the UK, it may seem bizarre that we have a 19th Century law here, nowadays most usually used against cyclists, that prohibits “wanton or furious driving” (under the Offences Against the Person Act 1861). While reform of the legislation to bring it into the 21st Century has long been promised by the government, there’s little sign of that happening just yet. Other countries though have their own laws regarding cycling that viewed from here, seem equally strange. Here's a selection of some weird and wonderful ones that we've found.

> Is there anywhere cyclists are required to be licensed?

Can you ride tandem? Well you couldn’t in Tokyo – until now

From July 2023, tandem bicycles are now legal across Japan, with the scrapping of a law that prohibited them from the streets of Tokyo, the last place in the country where they had been banned.

Campaigners have hailed the move as enabling blind and partially-sighted people, as well as those with various other disabilities and some elderly people, to be able to enjoy cycling.

Riding while drunk in Germany can lead to driving ban

While it is, quite sensibly an offence in the UK to ride a bicycle while under the influence of alcohol, police officers cannot force a cyclist to undergo a breathalyser test – and because the lack of a test result may make successful prosecution tricky, a charge of careless or reckless cycling may follow instead.

Moreover, since it is not considered a driving offence, even if a conviction for drunk cycling did result, it would not lead to penalty points on a licence or even disqualification from driving.

We are certainly not saying that is crazy to have laws against riding a bike after a few drinks, but some of the punishments in other countries for doing so do seem a bit extreme, as you will see below.

Drunk cyclist in Germany gets 15-year ban from driving…

Not so in Germany, however, where people riding bicycles are subject to the same traffic laws as everyone else, including those related to drink-driving, and they can lose their driving licence, should they hold one.

One young man, riding his bike home from a student party back in 2009, didn’t have a driving licence, but was three times over the limit – and found himself banned from cycling, skateboard, or any other licence-free vehicle for the following 15 years … just another 12 months or so to go, then.

Curiously, the law does allow him to ride a horse – though given that the protagonist here, nowadays no doubt older and wiser and probably fed up of explaining to people why he doesn’t drive a car or ride a bike, is allergic to horse hair, that’s probably not much use to him.

… but across the border in Poland, he could have been jailed

But don’t even think of riding a bike in Poland while drunk – also back in 2009, the country’s constitutional court ruled that cyclists convicted of riding while drunk should be treated the same way as intoxicated drivers, and they should be fined or imprisoned, with the latter the most common course of action, and offenders on average being put away for more than 11 years.

Sans-culottes – Paris’s long-standing ban on women in trousers, unless in the saddle

Paris, undoubtedly, is one of the world’s fashion capitals – making it all the more bizarre that from 1799 until just ten years ago, there was a law forbidding women from wearing trousers, initially enacted during the revolutionary period since presumably you couldn't have women in culottes showing solidarity with those lacking said garments – although if you visited the city a decade or more ago, you’d never have known that such a law was in force in the first place.

There was however one exception, made in 1909, and which permitted women to wear trousers if they were riding a horse or a bike, all in the interests of decorum, naturally, although it doesn’t seem to have actually been compulsory to do so.

No winking at women … and no moustaches

Lachlan Morton = banned in Oklahoma

While laws in many countries are set nationally or perhaps regionally, in the United States, besides federal and statewide legislation, there is a plethora of local ordinances in force, often at town or city level, that provide us with some of the more bizarre examples of legislation governing behaviour on bikes.

Much of the law that made it onto the statute books (and which in many cases has since been repealed) regulated what women were permitted or forbidden to do on a bike, while other legislation dealt with the relationship between the sexes when it came to bike rides.

For example, the town of Newport, Vermont in the north east of the country, permitted married women to go for a bike ride alone on a Sunday, while married men were not allowed to do so (whether a married couple could go out on a ride together, on a bicycle made for two, for instance, is unknown).

A Sunday cycling ban in Ogallala, Vermont, meanwhile, meant that women who were unmarried, widowed, or divorced, were breaking the law if they were found cycling on the Lord’s Day (in passing, we should mention that male or female, reading a newspaper while riding a bike – a rather singular skill, one would have thought – was banned in Woodbridge, Virginia on Sundays during times when church services were being held.

As far as interaction between the sexes is concerned, men in Ottumwa, Iowa, risked falling foul of the law if they winked at a woman while riding a bike, while in Oklahoma, the town of Lugert had a law preventing men sporting a moustache from going for a bike ride with a woman.

No cycling in swimming pools

Baldwin Park, California, regularly makes lists of bizarre cycling laws through a local ordinance that bans people from riding bikes in swimming pools – often prompting the observation of why on earth someone would want to get their bike, and themselves, wet?

In fact, there’s logic to the local legislation, and it dates back to the skateboarding and BMX boom of the late 70s when during the cooler months, kids would sneak into properties and use empty swimming pools to perform tricks (the city itself went on to build them a skate park).

Do Missouri cyclists really have to fit a 15-foot flagpole on their bikes?

Finally from the US, a bit of urban myth-busting. Back in 2016, a member of Missouri’s state legislature tabled a bill proposing that all cyclists riding on a “letter country road” – the US equivalent of B roads in the UK – should have to fly an orange flag from, get this, a 15-foot pole attached to their bike.

In response, one St Louis bike shop even rigged up a bike to highlight the ridiculousness of what was being proposed by then Representative Jay Houghton (who, it goes without saying was a Republican), as shown in the Twitter post below.

@cyclelicious -- the folks @StlBicycleWorks made a 15' pole today to show ridiculousness of MO bill. pic.twitter.com/FAjeCB0XvV

— Carrie Z (@velo_city) January 13, 2016

The bill, unsurprisingly, didn’t make it onto the statute books – but that hasn’t stopped the crackpot idea regularly featuring on lists of weird cycling laws since the idea was first floated.

Saudi Arabia relaxes ban on women cycling … slightly

 

 

 

 

View this post on Instagram

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

A post shared by Samar Rahbini | سمر رهبيني (@samrahbini)

The part the bike played in enabling women in western countries to assert their independence in the the late 19th and early 20th centuries in western countries is well-known, and in recent years we have also seen women in Middle Eastern countries including Iran take to the saddle – and social media – in defiance of the country’s ban on them riding bikes as a way of asserting their independence.

In Saudi Arabia, a total ban on women cycling was partially reversed as recently as 2013 but with strict conditions imposed – it is only permitted in recreational areas, under the supervision of a male relative, and riding must be done while wearing Islamic dress.

The country may be engaged in a sportswashing offensive right now, ranging from golf to football, but we’re not sure we’re going to see a women’s version of the Saudi Tour any time soon.

No topless riding in Thailand

On the subject of what not to wear (or rather, not wear), it may get humid in summer in Thailand, but forget riding a bike around without a t-shirt on if you want to avoid a fine, albeit one that for a western tourist is unlikely to trouble the bank balance too much, clocking in at under a fiver.

The law presumably was brought in as a response to tourists riding from the beach to the bar in a state of semi-undress, and as to what is acceptable as clothing on your upper body goes … well, the King of Thailand has been spotted in the past pedalling while wearing a rather fetching crop-top.

Mind you, he’s the King, so maybe that’s not a precedent to argue over with the Thai police if you get pulled over while riding with a skimpy top on, plus he was in Switzerland, not Thailand, at the time.

Great Britain: Bikes don’t have to have a bell, but cannot be sold without one (and your clipless pedals are felonious)

And finally, we’re back home for a couple of rules and regulations that may seem strange to people beyond these shores.

Since 1999, there has been no legal requirement for cyclists in Great Britain to have a bike bell fitted – although whether it’s a budget bike from a big box store or a sleek racing machine from a high-end dealer, the Pedal Bicycles (Safety) Regulations 2010 is that one has to be fitted when it is sold, and often the first bit of fettling a new bike is having the bell removed.

We mention Great Britain specifically because the rule applies to England, Scotland and Wales only – in Northern Ireland, which has its own version of the Highway Code, cyclists “MUST ensure a working bell or horn is fitted.” 

It's also worth noting that legally, all bikes sold in Great Britain must be sold with wheel reflectors and "a red wide-angle rear reflector and amber reflectors front and rear on each pedal", and technically you have to have the pedal reflectors fitted outside of daylight hours - which may seem a little pointless now that you can pick up positively blinding rear bike lights for about twenty quid.

So indeed, if you've recently moved here and happen to spend several thousand pounds on a shiny new road racing bike, it's completely normal for the shop to throw in some of the very cheapest reflector-shod pedals and a bell with your purchase. It would have to be a particularly vindictive police officer to pursue the bike shop if they forgot, and it's rather unlikely you'll be penalised for not having pedal reflectors at night if you're running a decent set of lights. 

Back to bells, and to a country that never seems to miss an opportunity to hit cyclists with stonking fines (most usually for riding without a helmet), riding your bike without a bell in Australia will land you a hefty fine – up to A$2,200 if you decide to challenge it in court.

Are you aware of any other bizarre pieces of bike-related legislation that you think deserve a place on our list? Let us know in the comments below…