# Queen Elizabeth's drivers license **URL:** \ **Category:** Factual Questions\ **Created:** [November 25, 2006, 4:58am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/queen-elizabeths-drivers-license/381722 "2006-11-25T04:58:01Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 5
**Author:** ![Monty](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/monty/32/47_2.png) [@Monty](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Monty)\ **Post date:** [November 26, 2006, 10:14pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/queen-elizabeths-drivers-license/381722/81 "2006-11-26T22:14:45Z")
[QUOTE=Chez Guevara] If anyone has anything to add please advise before midnight GMT. [/QUOTE] You might wish to change “myself” to “me” as that’s the correct form of the pronoun concerned. And drop a couple of natty remarks, too. Show 'er that although she’s living a sinecured life, you think she’s a nice gal anyway. ---
**Author:** ![Mk\_VII](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/5f9b8f/32.png) [@Mk\_VII](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mk_VII)\ **Post date:** [November 26, 2006, 11:54pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/queen-elizabeths-drivers-license/381722/82 "2006-11-26T23:54:30Z")
she would need insurance to drive on the public road, and you can’t get insured with a valid driving licence. ---
**Author:** ![Zoe](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/z/a4c791/32.png) [@Zoe](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Zoe)\ **Post date:** [November 27, 2006, 1:44am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/queen-elizabeths-drivers-license/381722/83 "2006-11-27T01:44:28Z")
I remember reading several years ago that she was driving her own car in the country (with someone else along) and had a little car trouble. It was necessary to go to a nearby farm house to get assistance. It was strange enough to make the newspapers. The startled farmer and his wife were interviewed. ---
**Author:** ![GorillaMan](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/50afbb/32.png) [@GorillaMan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/GorillaMan)\ **Post date:** [November 27, 2006, 1:54am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/queen-elizabeths-drivers-license/381722/84 "2006-11-27T01:54:20Z")
[QUOTE=Mk VII] she would need insurance to drive on the public road, and you can’t get insured with a valid driving licence. [/QUOTE] But would the insurance necessarily be in the same name as the owner? ---
**Author:** ![Defective\_Detective](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/d2c977/32.png) [@Defective\_Detective](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Defective_Detective)\ **Post date:** [November 27, 2006, 2:06am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/queen-elizabeths-drivers-license/381722/85 "2006-11-27T02:06:19Z")
[QUOTE=Chez Guevara] Public Information Officer Buckingham Palace London SW1A 1AA Dear Sir/Madam, There has been some recent speculation between myself and a group of friends as to whether Her Majesty The Queen has a driving licence or not. I am unable to ascertain the truth of the matter elsewhere, and so I would be grateful if you could supply some answers regarding the issue, as follows: (1) As Princess Elizabeth, the Queen was issued with a licence in 1945. I am given to understand this licence was retained by her driving instructor, and is now an exhibit at the Adjutant General’s Corps Museum in Peninsula Barracks, Winchester. Can you confirm the licence expired on the Queen’s 70th birthday in line with normal DVLA rules? (2) Did the Queen renew her licence in 1996 in order to preserve its validity? (3) Does the Queen ever drive on the public highway? (4) Does the Queen, or whoever is the reigning monarch, require a driving licence in order to drive lawfully on the public highway? (5) I am sure the Queen’s driving skills are above suspicion but, in theory, if she drove on the public highway and exceeded the speed limit, could a prosecution ensue? Personally I doubt it but I would be pleased if you could confirm. Many thanks. Yours faithfully, C. Guevara [/QUOTE] I do usually value succint correspondence. No doubt a person in a position of such responsibility as the Public Information Officer does so too. I would recommend a letter that includes only points (3) and (4) of the five stated above. That is, after all, what we really want to know, isn’t it? ---
**Author:** ![Zoe](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/z/a4c791/32.png) [@Zoe](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Zoe)\ **Post date:** [November 27, 2006, 2:27am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/queen-elizabeths-drivers-license/381722/86 "2006-11-27T02:27:27Z")
> [@](#): > > **alphaboi867** : Even weirder the Princess Elizabeth took Phillip’s made-up surname, **Mountbatten** , on her marriage and Charles and Anne were born with it. **Mountbatten** is no more made up than any other surname. It is the Anglicized version of _Battenberg_, which is German in origin. Phillip’s family chose the Alglicized version during World War I. (_Berg_ means _mountain_.) He and Elizabeth II are both decendents of Queen Victoria. **Mountbatten** is no shabby name in itself. [Cite](http://www.answers.com/topic/battenberg-family) ---
**Author:** ![Princhester](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/3e96dc/32.png) [@Princhester](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Princhester)\ **Post date:** [November 27, 2006, 2:40am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/queen-elizabeths-drivers-license/381722/87 "2006-11-27T02:40:57Z")
[QUOTE=psychonaut] Neither does she have a passport, the reason given being that all UK passports are issued in her name, so it wouldn’t make sense for her to issue her own passport. [/QUOTE] Except without one, those damned unaccommodating immigration officers are not going to accept that she is who she says she is and so are not going to accept she doesn’t need one. [QUOTE=DSYoungEsq] As Her Majesty, Queen Elizabeth, she does not need a license, because she IS the state. As I pointed out, WHO would be licensing her, herself?? [/QUOTE] To whom does she pay taxes then? It’s all a bit more complicated than you think. ---
**Author:** ![matt\_mcl](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/7ab992/32.png) [@matt\_mcl](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/matt_mcl)\ **Post date:** [November 27, 2006, 3:50am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/queen-elizabeths-drivers-license/381722/88 "2006-11-27T03:50:20Z")
[QUOTE=Princhester] To whom does she pay taxes then? It’s all a bit more complicated than you think. [/QUOTE] Since the Queen’s income is earned in her private capacity, there’s no contradiction about her paying taxes to the state embodied by her public capacity. In various regards, they are two separate legal personalities, just as with the difference between Crown land and the Queen’s personal estates. ---
**Author:** ![Princhester](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/3e96dc/32.png) [@Princhester](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Princhester)\ **Post date:** [November 27, 2006, 4:00am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/queen-elizabeths-drivers-license/381722/89 "2006-11-27T04:00:25Z")
That’s my point. ---
**Author:** ![matt\_mcl](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/7ab992/32.png) [@matt\_mcl](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/matt_mcl)\ **Post date:** [November 27, 2006, 4:01am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/queen-elizabeths-drivers-license/381722/90 "2006-11-27T04:01:51Z")
[QUOTE=Princhester] That’s my point. [/QUOTE] I know, just illustrating it. ---
**Author:** ![Rigamarole](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/77aa72/32.png) [@Rigamarole](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Rigamarole)\ **Post date:** [November 27, 2006, 5:39am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/queen-elizabeths-drivers-license/381722/91 "2006-11-27T05:39:29Z")
[QUOTE=GorillaMan] Expire as in need to take a new driving test, or expire as in simply need to renew it with an up-to-date photo? The old paper (i.e. non-photo) ones lasted that long, but the modern ones need replacing every ten years. [/QUOTE] Expire as in need to go to the DMV and pay $22 (or whatever) to renew (and take a written test). 😃 We usually don’t take driving tests here. (I had one when I was 15 but that was to get a learner’s permit, not a license - it also varies by state) ---
**Author:** ![chowder](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/977dab/32.png) [@chowder](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/chowder)\ **Post date:** [November 27, 2006, 7:53am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/queen-elizabeths-drivers-license/381722/92 "2006-11-27T07:53:12Z")
**Sandy Hook** As has been pointed out we do need a TV licence and as a matter of fact even **blind** persons have to have one altho’ I do believe it only costs £5. Hell man, it used to be that we had to have a radio licence. ---
**Author:** ![Rayne\_Man](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/df705f/32.png) [@Rayne\_Man](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Rayne_Man)\ **Post date:** [November 27, 2006, 8:09am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/queen-elizabeths-drivers-license/381722/93 "2006-11-27T08:09:02Z")
[QUOTE=Zoe] **Mountbatten** is no shabby name in itself. [/QUOTE] Their cake’s quite nice as well. ---
**Author:** ![Rayne\_Man](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/df705f/32.png) [@Rayne\_Man](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Rayne_Man)\ **Post date:** [November 27, 2006, 8:16am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/queen-elizabeths-drivers-license/381722/94 "2006-11-27T08:16:36Z")
[QUOTE=Rayne Man] Their cake’s quite nice as well. [/QUOTE] Of course I meant Battenberg :smack: ---
**Author:** ![Chez\_Guevara](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/aeb1de/32.png) [@Chez\_Guevara](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chez_Guevara)\ **Post date:** [November 27, 2006, 11:51am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/queen-elizabeths-drivers-license/381722/95 "2006-11-27T11:51:41Z")
[QUOTE=Chez Guevara] There is a phone number for the Public Information Office and I might try that first. It’s doubtful, however, that the information we need is readily available. I’m just hoping it is in the public domain. You never know with the Royals. They can be secretive when they want to be. [/QUOTE] I just called the number. The switchboard operator placed me on hold. There is, apparently, only one line into the Public Information Office. Somewhat disappointingly there was no music to amuse me while I waited. I was rather hoping for a tape loop comprising _If I Ruled the World, Killer Queen, Snoopy v. the Red Baron_ (by the Royal Guardsmen) and something by Prince. When I was put through the only information I gathered was that the Queen is not governed by (an) Act of Parliament. No surprises there. Anyway, the girl I spoke with asked me to put my questions in writing so we’ll just have to wait and see. ---
**Author:** ![Loach](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/loach/32/350_2.png) [@Loach](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Loach)\ **Post date:** [November 27, 2006, 2:17pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/queen-elizabeths-drivers-license/381722/96 "2006-11-27T14:17:02Z")
[QUOTE=Chez Guevara] I just called the number. The switchboard operator placed me on hold. There is, apparently, only one line into the Public Information Office. Somewhat disappointingly there was no music to amuse me while I waited. I was rather hoping for a tape loop comprising _If I Ruled the World, Killer Queen, Snoopy v. the Red Baron_ (by the Royal Guardsmen) and something by Prince. When I was put through the only information I gathered was that the Queen is not governed by (an) Act of Parliament. No surprises there. Anyway, the girl I spoke with asked me to put my questions in writing so we’ll just have to wait and see. [/QUOTE] Just give her a link to this thread. ---
**Author:** ![Chez\_Guevara](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/aeb1de/32.png) [@Chez\_Guevara](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chez_Guevara)\ **Post date:** [November 27, 2006, 3:00pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/queen-elizabeths-drivers-license/381722/97 "2006-11-27T15:00:49Z")
Well OK but if her answers are unsatisfactory we’ll have to Pit her. ---
**Author:** ![Mk\_VII](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/5f9b8f/32.png) [@Mk\_VII](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mk_VII)\ **Post date:** [November 27, 2006, 5:42pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/queen-elizabeths-drivers-license/381722/98 "2006-11-27T17:42:53Z")
[QUOTE=GorillaMan] But would the insurance necessarily be in the same name as the owner? [/QUOTE] Wouldn’t matter. All insurance policies will have a clause requiring all drivers of the vehicle to hold a valid drivers’ licence for the cover not to be voided. ---
**Author:** ![APB](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/8e8cbc/32.png) [@APB](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/APB)\ **Post date:** [November 27, 2006, 6:17pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/queen-elizabeths-drivers-license/381722/99 "2006-11-27T18:17:24Z")
I suspect they’ll just pull out [this](http://www.royal.gov.uk/output/page4489.asp), [this](http://www.royal.gov.uk/output/page3827.asp) or [this](http://www.royal.gov.uk/output/page2077.asp) from their bottom drawer. The precise legal point is that no Act of Parliament applies to the monarch, unless the text of the Act specifically says so. The relevant legislation doesn’t. [QUOTE=Mk VII] she would need insurance to drive on the public road, and you can’t get insured with[out] a valid driving licence. [/QUOTE] Ditto. And as she won’t need insurance, what other people’s insurance policies may or may not say is completely irrelevant. That she sometimes drives herself on public roads is reasonably well-known. It is said that she regularly does so between London and Windsor. It should also be noted that, although she doesn’t need a passport, she does need to obtain permission from Parliament to leave the country. Which is why her speech at the State Opening of Parliament always contains details of her planned foreign trips. [QUOTE=Alive At Both Ends] Are you saying that if I buy land in England, it doesn’t really belong to me but to the Queen? I think you’ll have to back that up with a cite. As I understood it, King William I came into ownership of the whole country in 1066, but he and his successors gave vast estates away to the barons as rewards for service and to keep them on his side. Having given the land away, it’s no longer royal property. Being king of a country doesn’t mean you have to own every last acre of it. [/QUOTE] [QUOTE=matt\_mcl] You’re quite right; there’s a difference between land that belongs to the Queen in the sense of sovereignty, in the sense that it is the property of the government as opposed to a private party, and in the sense that it belongs personally to the Queen and will belong to her heirs. Other posters went into the difference between sovereignty and ownership; as a frinstance, if the Canadian government purchases a building in New York as a tourism office, say, the land is owned by HM in Right of Canada, but it is obviously under American sovereignty.\* However, there’s also land that belongs to Elizabeth II herself, the so-called ‘crown estates’; the Queen herself owns that land like you own a house, and indeed rents a lot of it out to tenant farmers and such; since George III the revenue from this is turned over to the state, who turns around and gives the royal household a certain amount of that (the civil list) to pay for its activities of state. Similarly, Prince Charles owns a certain amount of land (e.g. the Duchy of Cornwall – not the same thing as the actual region of Cornwall, indeed including several territories outside of Cornwall), that he rents out and from whose revenues he pays for his own activities of state. [/QUOTE] No. You’re both confusing the issue. This is what was then the Lord Chancellor’s Department had to say on the subject in 2001 in notes they submitted to the House of Lords. [QUOTE=Lord Chancellor’s Department] The Crown is the only absolute owner of land in England and Wales: all others hold an estate in land. Estates, which derive from feudal terms of tenure, originally took many forms but were reduced by the Law of Property Act 1925 to two, an estate in fee simple absolute in possession, generally known as “freehold”; and an estate for a term of years absolute generally known as “leasehold”. [http://www.parliament.the-stationery-office.co.uk/pa/ld200102/ldbills/002/en/02002x--.htm](http://www.parliament.the-stationery-office.co.uk/pa/ld200102/ldbills/002/en/02002x--.htm) [/QUOTE] What often confuses people is the idea that feudal tenures were abolished in 1660, when in fact all that was abolished then were the practical effects of those tenures. The effect of that and of all subsequent legislation is that those who hold land by freehold hold it as if they owned it absolutely. So any theoretical ownership by the Crown is just that, theoretical. It is no more than a legal fiction. Contrast this with the case in Scotland, where feudal tenures were abolished outright. But only in 2000. The Crown Estates are not owned by the Queen ‘like you own a house’. Well not in the sense you mean, as, in theory, the Crowns owns everyone’s house anyway (see above). The distinction is rather that those were lands that were not granted to tenants _in capite_ but instead retained by the Crown; if they were granted to tenants, they were - and are - leased using lesser forms of tenure. It was not until the twentieth century that a clear distinction was established between the ‘Crown Estates’ and ‘Government Property’. But [the Crown Estates are not her private property](http://www.thecrownestate.co.uk/tce_faqs.htm) either. But, then again, it is generally agreed that she does hold private property, namely Balmoral and Sandringham. The issue arose in 1936 when George VI had, in effect, to buy out the Duke of Windsor’s claim to the latter two estates. ---
**Author:** ![Keeve](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/f07891/32.png) [@Keeve](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Keeve)\ **Post date:** [November 27, 2006, 7:40pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/queen-elizabeths-drivers-license/381722/100 "2006-11-27T19:40:51Z")
[QUOTE=Monty] That bit about the Queen being the State brings to mind something: the monarch (at least in the UK) is not above the law. That tends to show that she is most certainly not the state. She may represent the state. She may even be loved by the populace of said state. But she can’t be the state itself. [/QUOTE] To me, this really summarizes this whole thread. I am looking at this as an American, from an American point of view, so please correct me if things are different in England. But the way I see it, a license is NOT a permit which the State doles out to people it likes in an arbitrary manner. Rather, it is a certification that the person has met certain requirements, and is therefore entitled to do the thing which the license allows. For example, a TV license certifies that you’ve paid the fee to help support the BBC. So too here. If a license was arbitrary, it would indeed be silly for the Queen to give one to herself. But isn’t a driver’s license a certification that the person has shown a minimum degree of driving competence? Why would the Queen be exempt from that? Somewhere in England there exists an office (DVLA?) whose purpose, assigned to them by the Queen Herself, is to certify people as drivers, and to issue them licenses for same. I see no logical reason why that would not apply to her. (I admit there may be _technical_ reasons to exempt her. Some poster mentioned that no law applies to the Monarch unless the law explicitly says so. So if the law about driver’s licenses omitted that, then I guess she’d be technically exempt. My point is that there’s no _logical_ exemption, even according to the logic that “The Queen _is_ the State.” [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/queen-elizabeths-drivers-license/381722.md?page=4) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/queen-elizabeths-drivers-license/381722.md?page=6)