Driving lessons can be pricey, but the Netherlands has an alternate payment plan available: a ride for a ride.
In a country where prostitution is legal, perhaps it shouldn’t come as a shock that driving instructors are allowed to accept sex as payment for driving lessons.
But still — we are shocked. 🫢
Now, don’t go offering yourself up on a silver platter to any old driving instructor, because it’s only legal if it’s the instructor’s idea.
A legal ride for a ride
In 2015, the Dutch government confirmed that this type of transaction was legal, when Gert-Jan Segers of the Christian Union (CU) party, tabled a question in parliament, reports CNN.
While prostitution in the Netherlands is legal, certain qualifiers need to be met to keep it legal. One of them is having an escort license. Segers argued that any driving student would not have such a license making a situation like this “illegal prostitution”.
However, then Dutch Minister of Infrastructure and Environment, Melanie Schultz van Haegen, and then Dutch Minister of Security and Justice, Ard van der Steur, said that “a ride for a ride” is not against the law.
Netherlands is a good country. I can smoke weed and offer driving lessons for sex. WOW.
— 수연's Innigirl (@_innigirl) December 22, 2015
Basically, if the driving student proposes sexual acts in return for lessons, then the transaction is illegal.
However, if both parties are over 18 and the instructor suggests it, then it’s completely legal.
Now, we’re no prudes, and we’re fully in favour of legal prostitution with checks and protections, but um… are we the only ones this beyond bizarre? 😳
It certainly makes a good point to ask your driving instructor how they would like to be paid before lessons start.
So does it really happen?
Alright, you might be reading this thinking, “Hey, it’s legal, but it doesn’t really happen, right?”
Wrong. ❌
On an online Dutch sex marketplace (that we had to access for research, please tell our company’s WiFi administrators), there are tens of ads from driving instructors offering a ‘service’.
“I am a young Dutch driving instructor. Have been teaching driving for 9 years.
Ad on sexjobs.nl (Translated)
I would like to help you with a driver’s license. And after that we ‘do something fun’”
READ MORE | The complete and unadulterated guide to sex in the Netherlands
Entirely problematic
Needless to say, this has created problems. In 2020, a 23-year-old driving instructor was arrested after having sex with a minor, reports Hart van Nederland.
READ MORE | A Dutch driving licence! Five steps to that valued driver’s licence in the Netherlands
To stop this, the trade association has spent years pushing driving instructors to have to provide a Statement of Good Conduct (VOG) before being admitted to the protected profession.
“Today, you can take driving lessons from the age of 16.5. You want to know who you entrust your child to,” said Paul de Waal of the trade association BOVAG at the time.
“You also have to deal with an unbalanced power ratio, and you sit one on one in a car with the instructor. That makes it vulnerable and a dependency relationship.”
What do you think of driving instructors accepting sexual acts as payment? Tell us in the comments!
Totally agree …