Further boost for psychometric testing for drivers

Award-winning driver safety specialists, Peak Performance, have welcomed calls this week from a road safety expert for the introduction of psychological assessments to the UK driving test.

Robert Gifford, executive director of road safety charity, the Parliamentary Advisory Council for Transport Safety (PACTS), which advises the Government on road safety issues, told the BBC that the current driving test failed to root out drivers prone to breaking rules.

He said psychometric tests could help to identify people with the wrong attitude to the road. His call comes as the Driving Standards Agency carries out a review of how people learn to drive.

In the fleet market, Peak Performance is leading the way in the use of psychological assessments to determine those company drivers most at risk, and has developed unique coaching courses, workshops and behind the wheel training based on drivers’ behaviours in conjunction with Cranfield University.

Peak Performance managing director, James Sutherland, said: “This latest call for psychometric testing to be included within the driving test is very much in line with our own thinking.

“A driving based psychometric assessment can really get inside the mind of the driver and identify driving behaviours most likely to place him or her at risk, while specific driver coaching, be it in workshops or behind the wheel, can help modify or correct those attitudes and behaviours,” he said.

Peak Performance’s exclusive and ground-breaking work with Cranfield University has centred around the risk-profiling Fleet Driver Risk Index (FDRI) which identifies, through their driving behaviours and attitude to risk-taking, those drivers likely to be at the highest risk while driving on company business.

The FDRI is based on 20 years of academic research into the psychology of driver behaviour by driver behaviour expert, Dr Lisa Dorn, research director of Cranfield subsidiary, DriverMetrics, and of the Driving Research Group at Cranfield, and uses psychometric principles to predict how company drivers are likely to behave behind the wheel.

The FDRI is an online driving psychometric assessment designed to be taken by those company employees who regularly drive for work. Once the employee has completed the assessment – which takes approximately 30 minutes – a report is generated for each driver. The report:

identifies which employees are at a high risk of an accident

reveals the specific types of high risk behaviour that are contributing to the high risk for each individual

recommends the specific training course that aims to correct high risk behaviours and reducing the risk.

Since its launch last year, several thousand company car drivers have been through the FDRI system, and those identified as most likely to be at risk have then gone on to undertake Peak Performance’s unique workshop and behind the wheel coaching.

The psychometric tests are also being used by Arriva buses to assess new drivers, who face a one in two chance of being involved in a collision in their first year. In the last four years, while the tests have been in use, the company has reduced fatalities involving its buses by 31%, Dr Dorn said.

"Administering a psychometric assessment to drivers allows us to achieve two critical things. Firstly we can profile the way people think and feel about driving and how they generally behave so that a driving instructor can tailor their training to combat these risk factors. Secondly, drivers receive feedback about their personal qualities that might increase their risk of being involved in a crash” she said.