Queen Elizabeth II's granddaughter Zara Tindall banned from driving for speeding

Being a granddaughter of Queen Elizabeth II can't guarantee immunity for breaking traffic rules. So when Zara Tindall, daughter of Princess Anne and eldest granddaughter of the monarch accumulated 13 penalty points on her licence, she was banned from driving for six months.

Zara Tindall's licence was suspended under the "totting up procedure" after she was given four penalty points for overspeeding near her Cotswolds home in Gloucestershire in November. She was caught driving at 91mph on the A417 while the speed limit on the road was 70mph.

Under the "totting up procedure" in English law, drivers are given penalty points for every traffic offense they commit, according to the nature of the offense. The four points added to her already existing nine penalty points on her licence from previous motoring offences committed within the past three years exceeded the 12-point threshold for an automatic ban.

The 38-year-old did not attend Cheltenham Magistrates' Court for the hearing in the case on Wednesday because she is currently in Australia with her husband, former England rugby captain Mike Tindall. However, she confessed to the speeding offence that she committed in her Land Rover at Daglingworth, near Cirencester, on November 6 last year.

The equestrian star pleaded guilty through her lawyer Barry Warburton, reports Gloucestershire Live. Her lawyer told the court that he has "advised Tindall not to drive from today in Australia as any driving ban in the UK would affect her insurance in Australia."

After banning the Olympic medal winner from driving for six months, Roger Utley, chairman of the bench, also handed her a fine of 666 pounds plus costs and a victim surcharge of 151 pounds.

Gloucestershire Police traffic officers frequently patrol a speed trap on a layby at Dartley Bottom - a long, straight stretch that runs between the ancient towns of Gloucester and Cirencester, catching hundreds of drivers every year. In an interesting coincidence, Tindall's mother, Anne, was also caught speeding on the same stretch of road in 2001 in her Bentley.

Tindall had herself survived an accident in her Land Rover in December 2000, when she was just 19. She had sustained minor facial injuries when she overturned her car on a country lane between Bourton-on-the-Water and the village of Ford, reports People.