Philip didn’t crash because he’s old. He crashed because he’s male

Sorry to be sexist, but the most dangerous drivers have always been men, writes Terry Prone.

Prince Philip, the Duke of Edinburgh, probably looked even more like a monkfish after his Land Rover turned over last week and he had to be pulled out through the roof.

And if you believe it disrespectful of me to so describe him, I would gently point out to you that the description originated with his wife, Queen Elizabeth.

When the two of them visited Cork’s English Market a few years back, and the fishmonger who charmed the two royals lifted up a monkfish for them to see, the Queen laughingly told her husband, “It looks just like you, darling.”

Just before the weekend, the Duke went driving near the royal estate at Sandringham. Hearsay evidence has him stating that the sun dazzled him.

Whatever was the cause, the end result was that his enormous SUV collided with a Kia and then flipped over, which, for such a heavy monster of a car, seems astonishing.

The occupants of the other car had trivial injuries, although the smallest one, a child occupying a baby seat, apparently took the place apart in protest over the collision.

According to a passerby, the Duke bled lightly from some unspecified portion of the royal person.

The Duke also, inadvertently, unleashed an age-related controversy none of us needed.

Those of us over 60 particularly didn’t need everybody looking at their older uncle or their granny as a real and present danger to life and limb on the public roads.

Commentators suggested that, at 97, Philip should get a grip and a driver and not be t-boning other vehicles; he was just too old to be safe on the roads, they said.

Car contagion then reached Her Royal Highness the Queen, who was spotted at the weekend driving herself, despite her age. Imagine the danger she posed to every innocent road-user.

Of course, the truth is that this is not an age issue. It’s a gender issue. 

The Queen is not now, nor has ever been, a risk on the roads, whereas Prince Philip is now a risk and has always been one.

Not because of his age but simply because he’s male.

Sorry to be sexist, but the most dangerous drivers have always been men, particularly, but not exclusively, young men.

We tend to falsely generalise on this issue, saying that young people are dangerous behind the wheel. Not so.

Young men are the ones who are dangerous. Young women, not so much.

Five out of every six of those who died while driving in one recent year were male. Not a small majority.

A big, obvious, and largely unchanging majority. Middle age seems to have a beneficial effect: from their 20s to their 60s, the risk posed by male drivers reduces somewhat, but reasserts itself in old age, so that young lads and old geezers are the ones most likely, out of the entire driving population, to die behind the wheel of a car.

It may be possible to drill deep into the Road Safety Authority’s figures, although it’s beyond my statistical competence. But I’d love to have answers to two questions arising out of those figures.

First of all, I’d like to know how many of the incidents involving older male drivers killed anybody other than the driver. 

Is it possible that, although older drivers figure disproportionately in the road death figures, the reason is that older people are — bluntly — easier to kill, rather than that they’re bad drivers?

This is the situation in other areas of life. A fall that won’t even break a teenage bone can kill a pensioner. It might be that older people are not so bad at the driving, but not so good at the surviving.

The second thing I’d be curious about is the seat-belt wearing revealed by the figures. Clearly, neither the Queen nor her consort have much truck with safety belts.

She was photographed twice this weekend, once driving sans belt, once — the second shot — driving with a belt. Her consort, getting back into driving with remarkable speed, drove his new replacement Land Rover without a seat belt, which means the local police will be ticking him off.

Maybe the very old, who learned all of their driving habits before seatbelts were invented, never mind made mandatory, forget or refuse to wear them, and this is a key factor that ensures some of them a starring role in the mortality stats.

But the pivotal point, implicit in this issue, is not about being old and risky (and organisations representing older people should be stating so, loud and clear).

It’s about being male and risky. Philip Mountbatten, coming up to a century, is both. From his 20s, he has had an unusual, if not unique, reputation for impulsivity applied to the mouth.

Nobody, including him, has ever known what he was going to say next, or how inappropriate it was likely to be.

Impulsivity, as an aspect of personality, tends to apply to more than one part of an individual’s life, and that’s certainly been true of HRH.

Here’s a guy who volunteered to serve as a soldier in the Second World War and did so with distinction.

Here’s a guy who wanted to fly planes and — having done so — inspired his son and grandson to fly helicopters. Here’s a guy who always loved high-performance cars. Here’s a guy who was known to be heavy-footed on the accelerator. Here’s a guy who — but you get the picture.

The picture is of a very male bloke, who loves sport and speed.

The higher likelihood of risk-taking inherent in his gender has, throughout his life, been exacerbated by his personality, although, to be fair, we have to admit that his risk-taking hasn’t got in the way of him reaching a fine old age, him now being one of the longest-lived royals in history.

However, when we look at the crash, it’s important not to extrapolate to other drivers, who, while they may share his capacity to live long and prosper, do not necessarily share his tendency to endanger.

His wife is the splendid case in point. By virtue of her gender, quite apart from her more controlled personality, the Queen hasn’t demonstrated many risk-taking characteristics, in any context (other than the seat-belt failure) and isn’t suddenly going to start driving like a boy racer.

Because she isn’t a boy. Her age is immeasurably less relevant. She may be, and is, an ancient treasure.

But statistically, she was always less dangerous as a car driver than is, and was, her husband.

Even more to the point, right now, Her Majesty, despite her advanced age, is less of a risk on the road than her helicopter pilot grandson is in the sky.