At age 19, the then-princess learned to master a vehicle at a training center in 1945 while working in the wartime Auxiliary Territorial Service.
But, as part of the “royal prerogative” – discretionary powers or rights that the sovereign alone enjoys — she has never needed to take a driving test because she is excluded from the regulations and laws governing the road, according to the authoritative Royal Encyclopedia. She tends to be seen driving only around her private estates.
It’s not known who taught the Queen all those years ago, but she and husband Prince Philip did brave the arguments and nervous drives around the estates of Balmoral and Sandringham when the royal parents took turns to accompany their teen children, Prince Charles and Princess Anne as they learned.
After further lessons from the Metropolitan Police Motor Driving School, Charles and Anne sat and passed their tests in, respectively, April 1967 and a year or so later. Prince William passed his test – at the first attempt — in July 1999.
This article originally appeared on PEOPLE
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