Two days after Prince Philip was involved in a car crash that injured two women and sparked a debate on older drivers in Britain, the police gave him a warning after he was photographed driving on Saturday in another vehicle — this time without a seatbelt.
British news outlets published a photo of the 97-year-old prince behind the wheel of a Land Rover outside the Sandringham Estate, a private property of the royal family in Norfolk County in eastern England.
The police said officers had approached the driver.
“Suitable words of advice have been given to the driver,” a spokeswoman for the Norfolk Police said in a statement. She added that it was standard policy when “being made aware of or receiving such images showing this type of offence.”
News of the genteel warning to the husband of Queen Elizabeth II came as a women who broke her wrist in the crash, Emma Fairweather, 46, complained in an interview with the British tabloid The Mirror that the prince has yet to offer her an apology.
Prince Philip’s previous Land Rover flipped after hitting a Kia minivan on Thursday afternoon on A149, which runs along the Norfolk coast. The minivan contained Ms. Fairweather, another woman who also suffered injuries and a 9-month-old boy, who was unharmed.
“I’m lucky to be alive and he hasn’t even said sorry,” Ms. Fairweather was quoted as saying in the interview.
Buckingham Palace has said that “a full message of support was sent to both the driver and the passenger.” But Ms. Fairweather argued that the message she had received on Friday was not supportive and did not come from a royal, but from a police family liaison officer instead.
“He said, ‘The queen and the duke of Edinburgh would like to be remembered to you,’” she told The Mirror. “That’s not an apology or even a well-wish.”
Ms. Fairweather, photographed with her arm in a sling, also disputed the duke’s reported claim that he had steered off road because the sun had momentarily blinded him.
She said she did not recall it being sunny.
“I can’t see how that could be true when it was overcast,” she said.
Ms. Fairweather could not be immediately reached for comment on Sunday. The Norfolk Police did not immediately answer phone calls or emails seeking further information.
A day after the crash, Norfolk lawmakers cut the speed limit on A149 to 50 miles per hour from 60. The move had been previously planned, with officials saying there had been 40 accidents on this road in the past seven years.
Prince Philip, who news reports said had been shaken but not injured in the crash, had a precautionary medical checkup on Friday.
On Sunday, The Sunday Times said the Norfolk Police were weighing charges against the duke in connection with the collision, which could lead to the voluntary surrender of his license. But that seems an unlikely outcome for a royal, and one who was back on the road less than 48 hours after the crash.
Source : Nytimes
