The black-masked militias have vanished from most Baghdad streets, and the car bombings are down to one or two a day. So one recent afternoon, Hadeel Ahmed, a ponytailed college student in jeans, did something few Iraqi women have dared in recent years.

She drove a car.

“It bothers me to have to depend on my brother or father to take me everywhere,” the 25-year-old student declared, after finishing a class at al-Riyadh Driving School. “I want to be independent.”

Since the 2003 US-led invasion, women in the Iraqi capital have virtually disappeared from behind the wheel. With gun battles raging, the police force collapsing and the traffic lights dead, highways turned into a Mad Max world. Even today, you can travel for a half-hour across the sprawling city and not see a single woman driving.

But with the sharp drop in violence this year, women are venturing onto the roads. They are reclaiming freedoms denied by the Islamic extremists who warned them to stop driving, give up makeup and cover their hair.

Ahmed is one of those who has taken advantage of the waning presence of the militias to abandon her head scarf and long skirts and get behind the wheel. “Driving means someone is brave,” she said. “They’re strong. Not only in body, but also in spirit.”

While there are few statistics to document the rise in women on the road — driver’s licenses haven’t been issued since the 2003 invasion — it is evident at schools like al-Riyadh. Manager Sabah Kadhim said 29 of his 50 students are women, a 70 per cent increase compared with recent years. The Iraqi Automobile and Tourism Association reported that 123 people signed up for driving lessons in November, most of them women.

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