When Philippa was 17, growing up in a small Peak District community, there was only one driving instructor in the village. “Everyone was taught by him,” she says. But her lessons became uncomfortable. “It started with comments on my appearance – that I was a young, pretty girl, that sort of thing – and then comments about my body, along the lines of: ‘You should wear that skirt more often, I like your legs.’” Then things escalated: “A hand on my leg as he helped me change gear, with me in control of the car and so unable to react … That hand on my leg would gradually linger for longer, head higher up my thigh. There were subtle warnings, too, forcing me to acknowledge that I enjoyed the lessons and that I’d tell my mum that [I enjoyed them].”

Philippa isn’t alone. In the past fortnight, I have heard from 20 women and one man who were sexually harassed or assaulted by their driving instructors. Their experiences bear a series of striking hallmarks: almost all were young and inexperienced at the time; they all describe feeling vulnerable and powerless, trapped in a car in a potentially dangerous situation, with no witnesses present and an older man in a position of power over them. Several tried to tell their families what had happened, only to be disbelieved or told not to make a fuss. Some tried to report their instructor to the driving school, but were brushed off or ignored. And for many, the long-term impact was severe. Philippa, like many of the others, never learned to drive. Now in her early 30s, she says: “I honestly doubt I ever will.”

Facebook Twitter Pinterest The Driver and Vehicle Standards Agency has released updated guidelines this on the expected conduct of approved driving instructors. Photograph: Alamy

On her third lesson, Aisha’s driving instructor started touching her leg. She felt “humiliated and sick, dirty and unable to stop him”. She was 17. “I did not have the words and just had to put up with the inappropriate touching until the lesson finished.” When she told her parents, they told her she ought to go back for more lessons, rather than create an embarrassing situation by stopping.

Charlie’s instructor would tap the side of her head and call her “blondie” when she made a mistake. “When he wanted me to slow down he used to touch my thigh as an indicator that I need to stop. He’d leave it there uncomfortably long.” Sara’s instructor told her he wasn’t paying attention to her reverse parking because he was “busy looking at a woman’s tits”. Rhea’s instructor harassed and pursued her via social media after she had stopped taking lessons. Amy’s instructor asked her into his house for a cup of tea before suddenly grabbing her and sticking his tongue down her throat. And Jack’s driving instructor would tell him: “You have to touch the clutch very softly, like this,” before reaching across to “softly touch the inside of my thigh”.

These stories are not unusual. In the past six years, more than 100 women have reported sexual harassment or assault from driving teachers to the Everyday Sexism Project. When the #MeToo movement snowballed, a group of 10 women in San Francisco connected on social media after each had separately spoken out about allegations of harassment and assault by the same driving instructor. And just last month, a driving instructor in Fife, Neil Addison, was jailed for sexually abusing 14 female students during lessons in his car.

When he wanted me to slow down, he used to touch my thigh as an indicator to stop

The Driver and Vehicle Standards Agency (DVSA) released updated guidelines this year on the expected conduct of approved driving instructors (ADIs), admitting in a blog post that: “We do receive reports of serious inappropriate behaviour. These range from using sexualised language, unnecessary physical contact, through to inappropriate messages or images being sent to pupils.”

Jacqui Turland, the DVSA ADI registrar, says: “The DVSA takes the safety of learner drivers extremely seriously and will thoroughly investigate any complaints, involving the police when necessary.

“We do not tolerate any abuse and instructors found to be threatening the safety of learners will be removed from the Approved Driving Instructor register and stopped from teaching.

“To help tackle the problem, we have encouraged learners to report incidents, which has led to the DVSA investigating 87 driving instructors in 2017. As a result, action was taken against 48 instructors and seven were removed from the register.” In those cases where instructors were not removed from the register, most were given warnings about future conduct, but there was deemed insufficient evidence to warrant their removal.

One woman, who wrote to the Everyday Sexism Project about being sexually harassed by her driving instructor, said she had tried to report the incident to the driving school. But her account was doubted, with the manager implying she had no proof and might be lying, telling her: “With all due respect, it’s only you two in the car.” She said she was too afraid to report the incident to the DVSA, “because the driving instructor knows where I live”.

Of those I spoke to who did finally learn to drive following abuse, a supportive, usually female, instructor, was central to the process. There was often a long hiatus before they felt able to begin lessons again. Sophie waited 10 years to try learning again after her instructor repeatedly lunged at her, putting his hand on her knee and using the cover of emergency stops to “inadvertently” grope her.

They all described feeling vulnerable and powerless, trapped in a car, with an older man in a position of power

Lon was 17 when her instructor started to make inappropriate comments. It began with remarks about her breasts, but quickly escalated to telling her to “treat the handbrake like you would your boyfriend … Don’t let go of his cock until he says so”. It wasn’t long before he assaulted her. “He would accidentally manage to rub his hands down my thighs, in between my legs or lean into me. He occasionally groped my bum as I got out of the car. He used to tell me not to mention it to anyone because it was just an accident.” She would go home from lessons shaking, feeling “stupid and worthless” and blaming herself for wasting her family’s money. It was only years later, after finding a supportive instructor, that she finally felt: “I could look back and realise I wasn’t to blame.”

The same was true for Sal: “I was very scared to be enclosed in such a small place with this much older man touching me. I never went back to lessons with him and I only actually learned to drive last year, 16 years later, with a wonderful female instructor who made me feel safe.”

I spoke to several female instructors who said students had come to them after bad experiences with male teachers. Emma, who worked as a small-town driving instructor, told me: “It happens far more than people want to admit … One young woman who really stands out in my memory was assaulted by the owner of a driving school … They called our school after the incident because they wanted a woman to teach their daughter and I was the only one available in the area at that time. I remember sitting in the car with her at the end of the lesson and she told me that she was really upset and confused about what had happened.”

My mum gave me the gift of freedom – driving lessons | Iman Amrani Read more

This sense of confusion and shame is very common, particularly given the power imbalance inherent in the situation. The likelihood that many victims will be young exacerbates under-reporting. The impact on women’s lives is immense; these experiences often leave them unable to drive and therefore have lasting effects on their mobility, independence and careers.

It took Ellie over a decade to pluck up the courage to try learning to drive again after being sexually assaulted by her instructor. At the time, she was “too frightened to tell my parents why I wasn’t enjoying the expensive lessons they had bought as a birthday present for me. I didn’t pass the test and I didn’t have the courage to take more lessons until I was 28. I still feel robbed of my independence.”

Even finally passing the test doesn’t always resolve the issues. Zara describes how her experience of harassment at the hands of her driving instructor left her with a deep and lasting sense of unease behind the wheel. She says: “So much of it is comments to 17-year-olds who don’t know what they’re hearing is wrong. All they know is that somehow they feel uncomfortable driving … I am still a nervous driver over 10 years on.”

Some names have been changed.

Laura Bates is the founder of the Everyday Sexism Project, a collection of more than 80,000 women’s daily experiences of gender inequality