Read somewere recently that Towergate were going to start posting footage on youtube. I had a look today and was shocked to see myself at the top of page (not the green scania). Fame at last, but it really shows how usefull these cameras are. towergate gave me it free of charge.
I’ve got Roadhawk, I haven’t had cause to use it yet but I’m sure it could come in very handy, three or four times in the last ten years I have come very close to having a collision, always with a £300 car which suddenly pulls in front of me then brakes sharply, always in a Northern town, always with five Asians in it. I expect I’m racist for saying that, but that’s the score.
I’m with Towergate, it’s not entirely accurate to say the Roadhawk was free, in that you have to pay for the camera at the time. I was invoiced around £200 for it with a £100 discount on my insurance for having it, and a promise of £100 off of my second year’s insurance.
All in all, I am glad I’ve got it. I couldn’t work as an employee for one of these firms who have a camera pointed at the driver all the time so you can’t even pick your nose or talk to yourself in private, but I do see Roadhawk at something more likely to protect me from fraudsters than get me the sack.
In my last week as an O/D had a job to a new bypass. I went in the entrance clearly marked ‘SITE ACCESS’, on the correct road that was printed on my ticket. Crossed a bridge and got some bloke going mad at me. Told him I’d done as instructed on my ticket, he wouldn’t have it. Told me I’d probably caused £30,000 worth of damage and no-one else had come in this way (true enough but still not my problem).
By the time I’d gone down the site and joined the queue waiting to tip, the ‘SITE ACCESS’ where I’d come in had been mysteriously blocked. The guy came to me again and accused me of opening the gate and ignoring the sign (which he’d just put there). I told him that that was utter ■■■■■■■■ and that I had it on camera. He got quite irate but I told him to keep talking because what he was saying was still on camera cos the engine was still running. He told me I was banned, I said I would be delighted to be banned thank you very much. 
I downloaded the footage, which showed me enter the site and move nothing as I’d been accused of and his rant at me when i got home and still have a copy upstairs just in case. Well worth having IMO.
There just seems to be a general ethos of trying it on.
I was called into the office at Gregory’s not long after I started, stood on the Naughty Step and shown an angry email from a building contractor I delivered to at Tamar Bridge, complaining that my driving was so incompetent that they had suffered £80,000 of loss due to the wasted time I spent delivering the load at their premises, and demanding that Gregory’s never used me again.
I went straight back to the truck and did a print-out for the day in question, I had been there for 1 hour 12 minutes from start to finish to tip a 27 tonne palletised load in a very difficult building site location.
To their credit, Gregory’s told the customer " ■■■■ off and don’t ever phone us again".
All of this needs to be stopped, it is a transparent truth that honest people should not have to give money to criminals.
Harry Monk:
I’ve got Roadhawk, I haven’t had cause to use it yet but I’m sure it could come in very handy, three or four times in the last ten years I have come very close to having a collision, always with a £300 car which suddenly pulls in front of me then brakes sharply, always in a Northern town, always with five Asians in it. I expect I’m racist for saying that, but that’s the score.I’m with Towergate, it’s not entirely accurate to say the Roadhawk was free, in that you have to pay for the camera at the time. I was invoiced around £200 for it with a £100 discount on my insurance for having it, and a promise of £100 off of my second year’s insurance.
All in all, I am glad I’ve got it. I couldn’t work as an employee for one of these firms who have a camera pointed at the driver all the time so you can’t even pick your nose or talk to yourself in private, but I do see Roadhawk at something more likely to protect me from fraudsters than get me the sack.
Which model have you got Harry, and, do you rate it ?
I`m after one, but, they have some decent kit at different prices, any advice is welcome 
Cheers
I’m with Towergate and my Roadhawk was FOC, with the promise of £200 knocked off the excess for any claims. They also gave me a days free driving tutition which counted towards 7 hours of the drivers CPC, I did wonder though if it was an excuse for them to get some sort of assessment of their customers driving skills 
Big Joe:
I’m with Towergate and my Roadhawk was FOC, with the promise of £200 knocked off the excess for any claims. They also gave me a days free driving tutition which counted towards 7 hours of the drivers CPC, I did wonder though if it was an excuse for them to get some sort of assessment of their customers driving skills
I think you may be closer to the truth than you realise BJ
I`ve just had to jump through a long line of burning hoops, for insurance purposes, and they were very very keen on previous driving history, and, they wanted back up from the various companies I work for via their training departments.
Mind you, it all came good in the end, £2225 fully comp inc tax, £250 excess 
Big Joe:
I’m with Towergate and my Roadhawk was FOC, with the promise of £200 knocked off the excess for any claims. They also gave me a days free driving tutition which counted towards 7 hours of the drivers CPC, I did wonder though if it was an excuse for them to get some sort of assessment of their customers driving skills
I’ve got a Towergate driving assessment next weekend, seems a bit strange that they’ve left it until I’m over nine months into the policy, what was the procedure when you did it Joe?
Thanks Big Joe thought it was foc the £200 you mention I think is dependent on you providing video evidence of any bump.
Harry Monk:
Big Joe:
I’m with Towergate and my Roadhawk was FOC, with the promise of £200 knocked off the excess for any claims. They also gave me a days free driving tutition which counted towards 7 hours of the drivers CPC, I did wonder though if it was an excuse for them to get some sort of assessment of their customers driving skillsI’ve got a Towergate driving assessment next weekend, seems a bit strange that they’ve left it until I’m over nine months into the policy, what was the procedure when you did it Joe?
Several of us turned up with a truck each and were split into two groups, one group spent a morning in class with a cpc assessor who thought he knew it all (he got blown out of the water several times because of this 
) while the other group took it in turn to go out in their trucks with a couple of driver trainers. It was the driver trainers who were armed with clipboards that gave me the impression that my truck and me were being assessed, we had a good look around of the truck before the run with advice on forward planning etc 
during the drive. Break for lunch then the two groups swapped round.
Harry Monk:
Big Joe:
I’m with Towergate and my Roadhawk was FOC, with the promise of £200 knocked off the excess for any claims. They also gave me a days free driving tutition which counted towards 7 hours of the drivers CPC, I did wonder though if it was an excuse for them to get some sort of assessment of their customers driving skillsI’ve got a Towergate driving assessment next weekend, seems a bit strange that they’ve left it until I’m over nine months into the policy, what was the procedure when you did it Joe?
Makesure you are ok to drive, I know of one very large german owned logistics giant, who had SIX drivers in for a day long long [saturday] assessment, who all refused to go out on a “drive”, as they were all on a 45 hour break 
All sent home, and banned from any further assessments 
Stanley Mitchell:
Harry Monk:
I’ve got Roadhawk, I haven’t had cause to use it yet but I’m sure it could come in very handy, three or four times in the last ten years I have come very close to having a collision, always with a £300 car which suddenly pulls in front of me then brakes sharply, always in a Northern town, always with five Asians in it. I expect I’m racist for saying that, but that’s the score.I’m with Towergate, it’s not entirely accurate to say the Roadhawk was free, in that you have to pay for the camera at the time. I was invoiced around £200 for it with a £100 discount on my insurance for having it, and a promise of £100 off of my second year’s insurance.
All in all, I am glad I’ve got it. I couldn’t work as an employee for one of these firms who have a camera pointed at the driver all the time so you can’t even pick your nose or talk to yourself in private, but I do see Roadhawk at something more likely to protect me from fraudsters than get me the sack.
Which model have you got Harry, and, do you rate it ?
I`m after one, but, they have some decent kit at different prices, any advice is welcome
Cheers
Come on Harry, spill the beans, which one have you got, and do you rate it ■■?
Stanley Mitchell:
Come on Harry, spill the beans, which one have you got, and do you rate it ■■?
It’s a Roadhawk, not sure which model, it was sent to me as part of the insurance policy. It’s plugged into the cigarette lighter and any time it detects an “event” (this normally means going over a pothole or bump in the road) then it beeps, flashes a red light, and apparently retains the previous ten seconds footage and the following ten seconds. Otherwise it discards the footage.
As I understand it, in the event of an accident it would produce footage like this and I would then email it to Towergate or send them the SIM card.
Harry Monk:
Stanley Mitchell:
Come on Harry, spill the beans, which one have you got, and do you rate it ■■?It’s a Roadhawk, not sure which model, it was sent to me as part of the insurance policy. It’s plugged into the cigarette lighter and any time it detects an “event” (this normally means going over a pothole or bump in the road) then it beeps, flashes a red light, and apparently retains the previous ten seconds footage and the following ten seconds. Otherwise it discards the footage.
As I understand it, in the event of an accident it would produce footage like this and I would then email it to Towergate or send them the SIM card.
Ta, I think I know which one you`ve got, there is quite a difference in prices and quality of the data captured
Out of interest, what do you use for your hands free kit ?
For the hands-free kit I’ve got two Bluetooth earpieces, one is a Nokia and the other was a £9.99 cheapie from Argos, funnily enough I prefer the cheapie which is lighter and higher volume. I have whichever one is spare charged up for when the other one goes flat.
Harry Monk:
For the hands-free kit I’ve got two Bluetooth earpieces, one is a Nokia and the other was a £9.99 cheapie from Argos, funnily enough I prefer the cheapie which is lighter and higher volume. I have whichever one is spare charged up for when the other one goes flat.
Ta Harry, Im after something for the cab, I canna wear them ear things, too painful, Ive got skinny tabs
I don’t know if you can get them over there, but the blueparrot over the head Madonna style headset things have excellent sound quality, to the point where you can hear and be heard better than using the phone without one and they have decent battery life,up to a couple of days if you don’t bunny too much, you look like a right knob wearing them though
The assessment is a good idea, it will hopefully stop the insurance company settling claims as a knock for knock, as they will have a good idea of your driving capabilities, so will be more likely to fight your corner, it may save a few bob too and that’s no bad thing, then there’s the DCPC aspect, all in all a win win situation I reckon
After all that my camera has now packed up. About a minute after turning it on it starts to beep and the red and blue lights flash alternately. It is a road hawk and is nearly three years old. Any ideas please ?
Beeping sounds are the camera’s way of telling you that Something Is Wrong. According to the Roadhawk manual (you have read it, haven’t you?) the most likely reason is a problem with the SD card - it may simply need to be reformatted, or maybe the switch on the card has accidentally been moved to the “Write Protect” position?
Tarmac duck:
After all that my camera has now packed up. About a minute after turning it on it starts to beep and the red and blue lights flash alternately. It is a road hawk and is nearly three years old. Any ideas please ?
Put it in your PC and totally wipe the memory, check all the settings and try it again. Mine worked fine after that.