Is It Illegal to Drive Without a Shirt? Public Indecency (2026)

Is It Illegal to Drive Without a Shirt?

The answer to the question, “Is it illegal to drive without a shirt?” is more complex than it might seem. As a first matter, no state has a law against driving without a shirt. Many of the laws drivers think are in effect do not exist. For example, no states prohibit any of the following driving actions:

• Driving without shoes
• Eating while driving
• Talking on a hands-free phone while driving

However, just because these activities do not violate any state’s criminal laws does not mean you should do them. Driving requires focus. When you do anything potentially distracting—such as adding underglow to your car—it can distract you or other drivers and potentially cause an accident resulting in serious injuries or fatalities. Aside from the guilt of harming another person, you could be liable for the victim’s losses.

For example, suppose that you get in the car topless with a cold, non-alcoholic drink for a drive to the beach. This is not, by any measure, an unusual situation. However, suppose that you spill your drink while driving and, in response to the cold drink hitting your bare skin, you jerk the steering wheel and sideswipe the motorcycle next to you.

While your nudity might, in itself, not constitute negligence, an insurer or jury might still find you liable for the injuries and property damage you caused. The claimant and their motorcycle accident attorney might argue that your overall actions failed to meet the standard expected of a reasonably prudent driver.

State-Specific Laws on Driving Shirtless

State laws don’t explicitly forbid you from driving with no shirt. However, if you’re a woman and your state’s indecent exposure laws forbid women from being topless in public, you could get into legal trouble for driving with no top.

There are three states that prohibit women from being in public without tops:

• Tennessee
• Indiana
• Utah

There’s some legal gray area here. You might argue that being in your car isn’t the same as being in public. But a prosecutor could reasonably make the argument that because the public can easily see into your car, driving topless as a woman is not legal.

Public Decency and Driving Shirtless

While state laws generally don’t explicitly prohibit driving with no shirt, city, county and other local ordinances might have stricter standards. Getting pulled over specifically for driving without a shirt may not be likely, but if you're pulled over for another reason, a police officer might give you an additional citation for driving without a shirt.

Potential Criminal Liability

Although no state prohibits driving without a shirt, states do prohibit public nudity. These laws go by many names, including “lewdness,” “indecent exposure,” and “public indecency.” Although it might seem unfair, these laws apply differently to topless drivers depending on the driver’s sex.

Utah’s lewdness statute, for example, prohibits women from exposing their breasts in public. Although the inside of your vehicle might seem like a private space, the windows potentially make it public. As a result, topless drivers in that state might face criminal charges for lewdness.

Colorado’s public indecency statute is arguably broader. Rather than limiting its effect to females, it applies to all intimate parts, including “the breast of any person.” As written, it can include males and females. This means that you could potentially face criminal liability in Colorado for driving topless, regardless of your sex.

Georgia has a broad-ranging public indecency statute that prohibits “a lewd appearance in a state of partial or complete nudity.” Unfortunately, the law does not define “lewd,” but the law could arguably cover any appearance in public while partially or completely nude, even if the person does not engage in any overtly sexual conduct.

Once again, Georgia police could stop you and arrest you for public indecency for driving without a shirt.

Safety Concerns of Driving Without a Shirt

Most people probably wouldn’t regard driving without a shirt as dangerous. However, for drivers who get into car accidents, having a shirt on can offer at least some protection.

For instance, if you get into a crash, a seat belt may cause a more severe abrasion on bare skin than it would if you had a shirt on. A shirt might also help protect you from broken glass and other debris.

Airbag injuries could be more severe, too, if you’re not wearing a shirt. You could sustain a friction burn injury from the force of the airbag’s deployment against your bare skin, which could lead to severe pain, the danger of infections and even the potential to suffer scarring.

Wearing a seat belt could also be uncomfortable if you don’t have a shirt on. The fabric could rub against you and lead you to try to adjust it. This might lead you to take your eyes and mind off the road, potentially resulting in motor vehicle accidents of all severities.

If you get uncomfortable enough with the seat belt, you might even decide to take it off. Seat belts help to reduce serious crash-related injuries and deaths by about half, so wearing one is vital. It can prevent you from being ejected through the windshield in the event of an accident.

Other Risks Under Criminal Laws

The Fourth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution requires police officers to have probable cause to pull you over. “Probable cause” means the officer must have a reasonable belief that the driver had committed a crime.

In states with public indecency laws that prohibit public nudity, the police have a baked-in reason to stop you while driving without a shirt. In other words, when a judge asks the officer to explain their probable cause, they will simply point to the public indecency laws. Thus, in states where the answer to the question, “Can you drive without a shirt?” is no, the officer has grounds to stop you.

Once an officer stops you, they can investigate any additional crimes that you may have committed. In other words, driving without a shirt might suggest to the officer that you are intoxicated by drugs or alcohol. The officer will administer field sobriety and chemical tests to determine your level of intoxication.

If you violate the state’s DUI laws, your shirtless driving will result in much more serious DUI charges on top of any public indecency charges.

Police officers can also bootstrap a traffic stop into a search for other crimes unrelated to your public nudity. For example, an officer might smell marijuana or see an open container of alcohol. Even if you are sober, they could arrest you for an open container, possession of drugs or even drug trafficking if they find a high volume of drugs.

Similarly, a police officer can call in your name to search for warrants. If you have outstanding arrest warrants for anything, including unpaid parking tickets, overdue child support or other major or minor offenses, they will arrest you, and you will probably spend some time in jail.

Common Myths About Driving Without a Shirt

If you’ve heard that it’s illegal to drive barefoot, in flip-flops or with your interior lights on, you’re not alone. However, just like driving shirtless, these actions generally aren’t expressly illegal. Similarly, while not all states explicitly prohibit driving with a missing side mirror, it can still give police a legitimate reason to pull you over. Still, because of differences in local laws and customs, it doesn’t hurt to check your community’s laws before getting behind the wheel without a shirt.

How Shirtless Driving Could Affect a Personal Injury Claim

If you’re filing a personal injury claim because another party caused a crash, but you were not wearing a shirt at the time of the accident, this could be an issue. You can expect the other party’s insurer to do everything they can to blame you for the crash.

It’s particularly problematic if your state has contributory negligence standards. These laws prevent you from recovering losses if you were in any way responsible for the accident. If insurers can establish that you displayed negligence by not wearing a shirt, it’s possible that you could lose your chance to receive damages.

The scenario can be even more complex if you removed your seat belt because it scratched against your bare skin. If the other party can show that your injuries could have been prevented had you been wearing the seat belt, you could be found responsible for a significant portion of your losses.

Even in states that have comparative negligence laws and allow you to still receive damages if you were partly responsible, your winnings will be reduced by your percentage of assigned fault. Some states only allow you to hold 49% of liability before they prevent you from recovering anything.

These issues put your claim at risk and also delay the process of obtaining a settlement. Disputes might derail negotiations and could result in you needing to take the case to trial. That further delays the resolution, and you may struggle to convince a jury that you were not to blame for your injuries.

The Role of Insurance in a Crash Caused by Your Negligence

If you cause a crash and the victim files a car accident lawsuit against you, your auto insurer will pay for any losses up to your policy limits. Thus, you might not have any financial exposure unless the victim’s losses exceed your policy or you were driving while uninsured.

However, after causing a crash that resulted in an insurance payout, the insurance company might decline to cover you in the future. Alternatively, your insurer might raise your premium rates so high that buying insurance becomes impractical.

Can Driving Shirtless Affect Your Insurance Rates?

Driving without a shirt is not likely to raise your insurance rates. However, if you’re pulled over and ticketed for it, there’s a chance that it could.

Contact ConsumerShield to Learn More

Whether you face liability for a crash or imprisonment for a crime, ConsumerShield can educate you about the law and refer you to a lawyer to help you. Contact us for a free case evaluation.