Sunday Express

Monarch obeying the law

- By Ruth Hughes and Tony Whitfield

THE QUEEN was back behind the wheel yesterday...with her seatbelt on.

The 92-year-old monarch was criticised for driving her Range Rover without a seatbelt a day after Prince Philip’s crash.

But Her Majesty has clearly heeded warnings of driving without buckling up.

The Queen was spotted close to Sandringha­m, followed by another car. She was joined by a woman in the front seat and two men in the back, just after midday yesterday.

It is compulsory to wear a seatbelt if there is one fitted, but the Queen is immune from any civil or criminal proceeding­s.

The Sunday Express can also reveal that Prince Philip admitted he was “getting old” and his “reactions are getting slower” – 15 years before his crash outside Sandringha­m on Thursday afternoon.

Back in 2004 in a book written

SAFE: The Queen drives off wearing a seatbelt yesterday

by the Duke of Edinburgh about carriage driving in 2004 he wrote: “I am getting old. My reactions are getting slower and my memory is unreliable.”

Prince Charles also expressed concern about his father still driving as he then approached his 93rd birthday as he attended the 70th anniversar­y of the D-Day landings in 2014.

When the heir to the throne met veteran Ivor Thomas, from Gloucester, a former corporal in the Royal Engineers, his son told him his father still insisted on driving.

Prince Charles replied:

“So does my father. I’m always worried.”

Motorist Helen Staines claimed in a now-deleted Facebook message that she was once nearly run off the road by Prince Philip, six miles from the scene of his recent crash.

She wrote: “How’s he still driving he nearly ran me off the road at Fring about time he stopped.”

 ?? Picture: STAN KUJAWA ?? INJURIES: Emma Fairweathe­r has been left with her arm in a sling and on painkiller­s
Picture: STAN KUJAWA INJURIES: Emma Fairweathe­r has been left with her arm in a sling and on painkiller­s
 ?? Picture: JAMIE HONEYWOOD/Archant Syndicatio­n ?? PROUD: Queenie Powell with her ‘kind and caring’ grandfathe­r Glen Watson, 58
Picture: JAMIE HONEYWOOD/Archant Syndicatio­n PROUD: Queenie Powell with her ‘kind and caring’ grandfathe­r Glen Watson, 58
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