The Mary Poppins Effect

Les sent me a link to an article about commuters who cycle. The title was "Women: How Comfortable Do You Feel Biking?" I found it interesting since I always run or ride in a skirt. Here is part of it:

What else affects women's comfort level riding? Chicago cyclist Dottie wrote about her experience with the "Mary Poppins Effect." Basically, drivers seem to be more deferential to people riding bikes if they're women, riding upright, and wearing street clothes.

Dottie also observed that an important element for getting this deference is either not wearing a helmet or wearing a brightly colored feminine-looking helmet with hearts or flowers. Most fascinatingly, her experience is that one of the biggest factors is whether the rider is wearing a skirt:

Typically I wear a dress or skirt, but today I wore a navy pinstripe pantsuit with a ankle strap on my left leg. Everything else was the same: I rode an upright Danish bike, wore a helmet covered with red hearts and rode with my typical calm assertiveness, but luxury SUV after luxury SUV after car passed me too closely. The effect was decidedly non-Mary Poppins.

I don't know that I feel like Mary Poppins when I ride, but on windy days like today, I feel I could be flying instead of running!