Freelander 2: Prince Philip has a Road Angel in his

The Duke of Edinburgh sensibly uses a Road Angel in his Freelander 2

Prince Philip has been snapped in his Land Rover Freelander 2 very sensibly making use of a Road Angel speed camera detector.

The Land Rover Freelander 2 is a much improved car, and one that gets the Royal seal of approval. Prince Philip drives one. And very sensibly – just like the rest of us who drive a lot and don’t want taxing by one of the millions of speed cameras on the road – he has a Road Angel fitted.

The Daily Mail snapped the Duke of Edinburgh getting in to his black Freelander 2, complete with Road Angel on top of the dash. Which they seem to feel is a big deal. But if you ask us it’s just a very sensible man doing what he does best – cocking a snook at political correctness.

It’s clear that the vast majority of speed cameras have nothing to do with making our roads a safer place to be. They’re there to raise revenue, pure and simple. Speed is not something that should be judged by a machine that can only look at speed without mitigating factors. It should be judged by an experienced driver or an experienced copper.

An empty motorway at three in the morning is a perfectly safe place to do 100mph. Get caught by a speed camera and you’ll lose you license. Equally, driving at 30mph down your high street on a Saturday afternoon is reckless in the extreme. But a speed camera doesn’t think so.

So we say to the Duke of Edinburgh – bloody well done! We use  Road Angels in our cars. They get put in any cars we have for road test. Not so we can break the speed limit with impunity, but so we know when what we judge is the right speed for the road and conditions is about to be rendered irrelevant by a machine installed to tax us.

A simple precaution we would recommend to one and all.