DrivePlus Plug-In

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This is a good app for a new driver with a black box however, the issue I have with this is the punishment of road risk to your score. I live on a suburban road in a quiet area and it has a road rating of 1. The extra information says that it’s a complex road layout or frequent to a high crash rate. Now I’ve lived on this road my whole life and there’s been 1 accident... 1! I get poor scores every day because I have to drive on my road and the link road above to get home. This also is a stupid scoring system as there is no logic to it. I drive from work on a dual carriage way which is a high road risk which is understandable, but the only alternative route is through a main road around many pedestrian hotspots like a town or a shopping area. That is a longer route and predominantly a higher risk due to the higher frequency of cars pulling out from side roads and pedestrians crossing the roads. I drive perfectly on the other sections but the road risk is either a 1 or 2 every journey because of that measuring system. It needs a review based on actual real life scenarios. What’s riskier? Driving on one slip road and then off at the next or driving through a highly populated area with more risks than a short dual carriage journey? Why is a suburban road a higher risk than a motorway with a higher crash rate than it? Other than that it’s a great and easy app to use with easy to read information panels and scoring system with a helpful journey tracker.

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Not even worth 1 star. I driver to and around London this week- got me a 93 score which I was amazed by- considering this including driving around London to get to my destination which I would class as ‘high risk’ roads. However every 2 mike journey I make to work and back, every day- Monday to Friday, 7:30am to work and 3:00pm back just for clarification, gets me an average of 41 points because of the ‘high risk’ roads I use (one being the one I actually live on I have discovered). How am I meant to get around this? Today was the last resort before complaining- I drove 0.3 miles to the local petrol station and got a score of 19!! I could not believe it- due to the ‘high risk’ roads. I am absolutely fed up with this black box already and don’t blame others being fed up with it either. In hindsight I’d rather of paid the extra £400 or whatever it was as I’m sure it’ll cost me and every other person with this black box an extra substantial amount of money if we renew with DirectLine. Great work DirectLine...

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This app and black box is a total waste of time. Not sure who programmes this but they have ZERO clue about roads and times etc. I get high scores driving at 7.30 am on a very busy and dangerous road, yet if I work late and come home on very quiet roads, I’m penalised for the time of day, despite the journey being far safer. I am penalised for turning my car on my drive as it’s supposedly a high risk area? Not one accident in its existence! I’m penalised for driving short journeys in 20mph areas, whilst doing 20mph. I’m mega-penalised for driving the AWPR Aberdeen bypass route as it doesn’t exist on this awful system so it assumes I’m driving at very high speed in 30mph zones, which I’m not. A score of 9? Really? Wise up! When I contacted the customer services to complain they clearly couldn’t care less. I would not recommend this to anyone - total waste of time; effort and it drains the car battery to boot!

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I’ve had this app for just over a month now, and in that time it has crashed 3 times, meaning journeys I’ve made haven’t been recorded, and I am unable to increase my overall score. The first time it crashed, I received an email, implying mine wasn’t the only one reported. The app now hasn’t worked for 11 days!! With nothing being done about it. Also every road in my area is classed as high risk, meaning driving round my local town gets me a score no higher than 50! No matter how safe I actually drive, which is ridiculous. As well as driving any time after 9pm being given a red score for time of day, which I cannot help due to my shifts finishing late at work. Many issues need to be fixed on the app for it to be worth while!

The app appears to work pretty well, but I often need to reallocate journeys to the correct transport type (i.e. Train, bus or taxi) because I don't have the telematics box in my car. However, since I've got the policy, both quarters that I was due a cheque I had to call Direct Line before a cheque would be issued. Presumably I wasn't sent a black box because my car is not compatible (VW Touran). Generally most of my short journeys get fairly poor scores, but a few long journeys bump my score up because I never speed and drive fairly smoothly on motorways. However, make sure you take occasional breaks on a very long drive.