If the Prince keeps driving like that and the next time kills someone it will be a national disgrace, and the Queen will likely take measures to try to prevent such a possibility. In Britain that will be a further swing to the Labor Party, who basically want to abolish the abolish the Monarchy.
My guess is that he will keep driving on the estate, pay the no-seatbelt and traffic fine and his chauffer will take over when going to town.
He wasn’t driving because he needed to get somewhere; he was driving because he wanted to drive, a sentiment that, I suspect, everyone here can appreciate. He’s been married for some 75 years to a woman he has to defer to and had everyone in Britain mind his every step, gesture, and word. I’d have gone batty a long time ago.
The Queen is above the law (and you aren’t a citizen in Britain, but a subject). I don’t know that anyone else is. One hopes the royal advisors are giving her an earful of good advice and that, eventually, she will take it.
I would go batty as well! There is an excellent comedy starring John Goodman? called “KIng Ralph” where a honkytonk piano player turns out the only living relative and heir when the entire royal family is wiped out. He feels the same frustration even as King.
Philip was a son of Greek royalty, rather dirt poor compared to the British royal family and he married well; Elisabeth was an attractive, intelligent and sports loving woman.
The British and Dutch royal houses are immensely rich (Royal Dutch/Shell), although the Dutch monarchy don’t flaunt their wealth and even turned over one of Royal palaces over to the city of Apeldoorn to make it a museum.
I can imagine getting a little stir crazy and annoyed with having to keep up appearances and such for the public.
I don’t remember much about King Ralph but do remember it being a notably awful movie. Apparently others agreed even if it does express the frustration of a regular Joe being thrust into such a regimented routine. https://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/king_ralph
I bet it would be hard to convince the UK public to get rid of the monarchy. It seems like people are crazy about this and the tabloids are even worse. Even people in our country are obsessed. I personally could care less and feel that we fought a war long ago to avoid being “subjects” under a king and queen. They are little more than figureheads today with parliament and all.
I like Prince Harry the best because he seems like more of a regular guy getting caught drinking, being naked at a party, and making off-color comments. He will probably be the one causing car crashes in his old age.
As for the other car tipping over a Land Rover, remember these things have a pretty high center of gravity. I was watching videos of Russian car crashes not long ago and it seemed like relatively small cars often flipped larger trucks and vans if they collided just right.
We had to take away the keys from both my grandpas after a few more minor incidents so unfortunately this isn’t an unusual problem. One of my friends who is a state trooper has had to deal with this a few times after stopping people going 25mph on a 70mpg Interstate and such. There was some wrong way driver as well that couldn’t be convinced she was in the wrong and that everyone else was going the wrong way. Speaking of cars in movies, this brings “Planes, Trains, and Automobiles” to mind. Now that was a good movie.
Hmmm…
Most people who are disinterested in the monarchy couldn’t care less.
I’m surprised that–in essence–you care… more.
I dunno, I think it’s easy to make broad conclusions based on a single incident. In 1958 a neighbor girl who was probably 17 or 18 was blinded by the sun and ran into a motorcycle killing the guy. I remember it because they got rid of the 58 Chevy for a 58 Buick. The whole side was smashed. About 1968 a kid of maybe 18 T boned me destroying my VW as he came barreling through an intersection at night without even slowing down. A couple years ago a young girl went through a stop sign and gave me the salute after I had stopped for her. She was oblivious to the fact that she had a stop sign. Then again I heard reports of an elderly lady in town with failing eyesight that drove looking through binoculars. There are a few other incidents in my driving career but mostly it’s been younger folks. In fact I just can’t recall an incident with an “elderly” person in my million and a half or so miles.
Thanks for the comments. In the movie, Goodman was not allowed to drive and sneaks out the backdoor on a horse from the Royal Stables to see a nightclub dancer he fancies.
The prince must have hated divorcee Wallace Simpson who married Edward who then had to renounced the Throne. If not for her, George VI would have never become king and Elizabeth would just have been an attractive well-to-do Royal Princess.
The Royal family is good for business; millions of dollars in tourist revenue flow into the country. The Dutch get more tourist revenue from their tulips and windmills than their Royal family who keep a low profile.
My brother who lives in England most of the time sums it up: " The Americans have Disneyland and Disney World; the Brits have the Royal Family".
If Charles succeeds the Queen, there will be uncertain times. He is in such low esteem (a British Dan Quaile) that Australia will likely become a Republic. Canadians have little use for Charles as well, and often poke fun at him.
Ah, I hadn’t thought about the high center of gravity. I forgot basic physics.
As to getting keys away from older drivers, it was a challenge getting my parents to stop driving as each reached diminished abilities. Dad wouldn’t give me his car keys even after multiple minor accidents within a short time. It took one of my brothers coming from out of town to whom Dad finally surrendered his keys and agreed to stop driving. I was grateful for the help and recognized it was a matter of respecting Dad’s pride.
That they get almost free care and live longer than the US population. We just like to joke about it 
I have family who lives there. They actually do have dental hospitals too. I have been closely involved in the care of 2 and know they got stellar care. I was just joking.
Getting old is no joke, and it’s a real problem that many of us, myself included, are aware of. And it’s hard to imagine not being able to get up and go whenever you want. But the man is 97 and even he should understand that it’s wrong to cause other people’s injuries. Time to hang up the keys.
I got to thinking today. A 97 year old man who is so frail he can no longer attend public functions and has given up all his royal duties get hit had enough to flip his SUV and two days later is driving again.
I wonder if this is having a positive affect on Land Rover sales?
The prince is welcome to do what ever he wants, over there and not here. Unreliable cars driven on islands are pretty self limiting as to the damage they can possibly cause regardless.
It’s not an endorsement of Land Rovers, it’s just more proof that he’s Prince Phillip, husband of the Queen, and you’re not.
I’ve got to take my refresher defensive driving class next week so just as a primer, think of this. Accidents do not happen unless two people make mistakes at the same time, correct? The essence of defensive driving is to avoid the situation when someone else makes a mistake-which we all do from time to time. So assuming the Prince made an error because of his age and faltering senses, what about the other party that didn’t drive defensively? So now we ask ourselves how many times have we taken evasive action and avoided an accident where the other person was in the wrong? Yeah quite a few. Young people, old people, feeble people make driving mistakes all the time. Rather than trying to get them all off the road which is impossible, double your efforts to avoid them.
I don’t drive in the left lane on the Interstate unless I have to. I have a number of reasons why I don’t. A couple weeks ago a guy was killed on the interstate when a pick up truck went off the road, rolled in the ditch, went through the cables meant to stop cars from head ons, and proceeded to plow head on into a couple cars going the other direction. I don’t know if the guy was in the left lane but I suspect he was. If he was in the right lane, he would have had a far better opportunity to get out the the way. It’s just defensive driving and as they say, he was right, dead right.
Yep, evaluate everyone!
Here is the thing, you can be a poor driver at any age.
If, as a society we are truly interested in road safety, we need to retest after the initial license. (not just “renew” every four years for Seniors, instead of six–what does that solve?)
Why not do it on a periodic schedule that is easy to remember: ten-year anniversaries from your very first license?
Thus, start at age 16 for example. Then, at age 26 you get another written, vision (BTW, a REAL vision test, by a licensed optometrist!), and road test—all three!
Same at ages 36, 46, 56, 66, 76, 86, 96, 106, etc. , or 10 year anniversaries of whatever age you started. If you fail, you have 30 days to study up, get retrained, get new eyeglasses so you might pass the tests again.
People can be a menace on the road at any age: drinking/drug problems, arrogance, inexperience, simple lack of knowledge.
Expensive, you say? Factor the cost of hospital bills, rehab, police, ambulance, fire, road workers, etc. Not to mention deaths. What is THAT cost?
Within a generation or two, the culture behind the wheel would change, and people would stop thinking they could drive * just fine after a few drinks…* and other poor presumptions.
If we are truly serious about road safety…and not just grandstanding.
I saw a little blip in the paper that the Prince apologized to the girl he ran into. I’m not sure his insurance agent would like him to do that but it was the manly thing to do. Maybe he could help her get a quick replacement car like he did.
I hope he did apologize. I saw an interview on BBC and the girl was saying she didn’t receive any calls/apologies. If the call came after that interview, then it is just a PR stunt.
I also agree that it takes two to tango, but sometimes you can attribute a lot of the error to one party.
One extreme here in CA is when a few young kids were coming back from Disney, a box truck jumped the freeway median and landed on their Sentra killing 3. Now if you were driving that Sentra, nothing could have saved your life.
I think getting old is quite funny, the things I hear are sometimes much funnier than the things people say! When you get old enough people don’t get too offended by what you say. I went to the police station the other day to get a handicapped hang tag for my wife. The clerk who handed it to me said " The temporary tags are good for one year, this is a permanent tag and it is good for four years." I started laughing so hard, I had to grab the counted to keep standing up. I think she would have been more offended if I was younger.
My doctor keeps asking me if I think my complaints are due to my age. I tell him I have no idea because I have never been this age before.
Don’t worry too much about getting old, it isn’t a permanent condition.
Except staying out of the left lane maybe.