What in the hell was DoE doing at the wheel in the first place?!

[PyongyangKipperbang]

If it was any other 97 year old driving a very powerful car who caused an accident there would be outcry.

There is no excuse, they have drivers and other staff that can get him anywhere he wants to go.

Had not has

If you don't have a driving licence (I don't know whether or not the DOE has) then, technically, you can't be disqualified. Just a thought.

The now discontinued Freelander was given a five-star safety rating when it was crash-tested by independent safety body Euro NCAP.

■ It has seven front and rear safety airbags to protect the driver and passengers, including a driver's knee airbag.

■ A safety report praised the way its steering column moved forward, creating more space for the driver, when it was tested for a front impact crash.

■ It features a 2.2 litre turbodiesel engine with 148 bhp or 187 bhp. It can come in two-wheel or four-wheel drive options

■ The top of the range HSE LUX version featured Windsor leather seats, Grand Black Lacquer finisher, premium carpet mats and 19-inch diamond turned wheels

I expect the Freelander that the DoE drives has been tweaked with plating etc, so may be heavier than normal.

The road is an accident black spot according to the paper:

'The dangers of the 60mph road where the Duke of Edinburgh crashed are to be discussed by Norfolk county councillors today.

The A149 is an accident blackspot – with the high speed limit and the road's design blamed for a series of crashes, some of them fatal.

In the six years to May 2018 there were 40 injury accidents on the A149, five of which resulted in deaths.

County council officers, who blame speeding motorists, are proposing to install speed cameras.

But Sandringham Parish Council chairman Ben Colson said local councillors believe that junction designs are to blame.

'It has a bad accident record,' he said last night. 'There are conflicting views as to what the causes of that are.

'My personal view is that the high accident rate in the area generally arises from the junction design more than it does from speeds because often the roads are heavily congested and it's impossible to do 60mph anyway.'

Mr Colson said the 15-miles between King's Lynn and Hunstanton was the most dangerous stretch of the road.

Describing the spot where Prince Philip's car overturned, he added: 'At that point, as you're coming north from the King's Lynn direction, you're coming from a wider stretch of road on to a narrower stretch. It's a dangerous stretch of road.'

The council officers' recommendation to today's meeting of the county's environment, development and transport committee include reducing the speed limit to 50mph and installing average speed cameras at a total cost of around £50,000.'

Before you assume he doesn't care, according to reports on the DT, he was straight over to the Kia once he was freed from his car, enquiring if everyone was OK.

We don't know who was at fault yet...the Kia could have been travelling too fast, or been blinded by the sun, as the Duke says he was.

Must've been a shock for the other driver and passenger, firstly the accident and then to find out it's the DofE!

I bet DofE was dismayed when he realised there was a baby in the other car as well as the two adults.

I totally agree that people always leap to excessive speed as a cause for accidents. It isn’t always the case and it would be totally legal for the Kia to have been doing 60. As there was not total destruction of the Kia, or any serious injury, one assumes it wasn’t doing 60 mph. A crash head on into a Freelander would have caused a lot of damage to both cars and occupants. More likely the Freelander was clipped. A new Range Rover is more robust and more dufficult to flip in this circumstance.

Fair enough, but demanding proof from other posters is rather arrogant. There were two woman and a baby in the other car. Distinct lack of concern for them I notice.

Right I’m just laughing at this now. I haven’t demanded anything. I have very simply said that I haven’t seen a news report that blames the Duke and I find it a bit naive/ageist/rude to assume that a driver pulling out of a side road at the age of 97 is obviously the cause of a collision.

He may have been at fault, he may not. The op used the word caused in the second line of his/her post. I think that, as a huge assumption, deserves a small query. I asked for a link and read a few other report myself to check. Still nothing. Not arrogant, not demanding, not blaming the other driver. Just saying it may not have been his fault and you can’t assume it was. Hope you don’t get called for jury service if you think it’s okay to blame people based on an assumption about their age or the manoeuvre they were performing at the time of the accident.

Assuming the other car wasn't speeding and assuming that the Duke vision was temporarily blinded by the sun, then surely neither party would lose their license (or ability to drive), right? Surely to lose their license there would need to be some negligence, such as driving under the influence or texting while driving?

Sorry not sure about UK driving law.

I would rather have the Duke of Edinburgh behind the wheel than probably about 15% of those on the road. Who should have been banned long ago for their conduct.

My preference is for a driving test or at least eye test and some medical every ten years, and if you want to drive a Range Rover or large Chelsea Tractor, that you have to take your test in it.

Actually, Range Rovers or Chelsea tractors, are easy to drive and handle beautifully, as well as being exceptionally safe. As demonstrated by the DofE walking away from this accident where the car rolled at age 97 in a Freelander.

@user1457017537 but a Freelander2 isn't a Range Rover. Totally different vehicles, although both manufactured by Land Rover....

@ForalltheSaints why should you have to take a separate test? Many 4x4s are incredibly easy to drive, have far superior seat positioning than your average hatchback or saloon, and, like the FREELANDER2, not Range Rover, that the DoE was driving, they don't all have ridiculously big engines. Absolutely no need for a separate test. Smh.

I know it was a Freelander but all Landrovers are based on the old Defender including Range Rovers.

It was armour played though - must have taken some force to flip that unless the armour playing is all unbalanced