Little-known reason why The Queen never needed a driving licence to drive
Topics: Royal Family, The Queen
Niamh Spence
Featured Image Credit: Max Mumby/Indigo/Getty Images
Topics: Royal Family, The Queen
Getting your driving licence is a right of passage, with many of us remembering our nerves of getting behind the wheel and trying to remember the right way to a parallel park.
For many of us it might even have meant a couple of fails before finally passing and getting that all important pink licence, and then getting our own set of wheels.
Yet the Queen never actually had a driving licence, and this might even mean that she never sat the driving test that made the rest of us so nervous.
Despite not actually having a licence, the late Queen was often known for her skill behind the wheel of a vehicle.
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The Queen first learned to drive during World War II when she served in the Auxiliary Territorial Service (ATS), the women’s branch of the British Army. As a mechanic and truck driver, she had hands-on experience repairing and driving military vehicles.
She was often pictured at the royal family estates, such as Balmoral and Sandringham, behind the wheel of a Land Rover and was known for driving herself rather than relying on chauffeurs.
So even though she didn't have that pink licence like the rest of us, she was still an avid driver with the reason why she couldn't have a driving licence comes down to a technicality as in the UK, the DVLA issues driving licences in the name of the Crown.
Yet, what do you do when you're the Crown?
As Queen Elizabeth II was the sovereign, she technically could not issue a license to herself, so was granted one anyway.
This rule of exemption also only the Queen it applies to as she sat on the throne, and other members of the royal family, including the King’s children and grandchildren, have had to sit their driving test and get a licence just like the average Joe.
This isn't the only thing the Queen was exempt from either, as she also never held a passport for the same reason, because all British passports were issued in her name.
The Queen, who died in September 2022, has also surprised many as some people didn’t even realise what the late monarch's surname was until she died, when they clocked it on her death certificate.
When her death certificate was released, the district of her death was listed as Aberdeenshire, while the cause was 'old age'.
But there was one detail that left people particularly surprised, with social media users shocked to learn the Queen’s full legal name was Elizabeth Alexandra Mary Windsor.
One user wrote: "Oh wow, I always thought officially the Queen didn't have a last name. So weird to see it on a document like this."
The next detail also stuck out to people, too.
Listed under occupation was simply: "Her Majesty the Queen."
One person joked: "If my occupation doesn't have the word ‘Queen’ in it on my death cert I'll haunt you all."
Another said: "The occupation is sending me."
If you're wondering what that occupation actually entails, the Royal Family website states: "The Queen’s famous red boxes carried the State papers which Her Majesty was presented with every day of her working life.
"Her duties included formally agreeing to make bills into Acts of Parliament, or laws.
"She also had a special relationship with her Prime Ministers, meeting with them on a regular - usually weekly - basis. She was famously able to ‘encourage or warn’ whilst always remaining politically neutral."