Test of the times

Psychometric testing is being used by Keystone Distribution UK – the exclusive supplier to Britain’s 1,200 McDonald’s restaurants – to ensure they recruit the safest drivers. Attitude behind the wheel is crucial in determining whether an interviewee is the right person for the job and the result of a psychometric test could be the determining factor in a driver being employed.

Psychometric testing from PeopleMaps was introduced around 12 months ago at Keystone Distribution UK’s Basingstoke depot. In 2006 health, safety, security and environment manager Stephen Barker recorded a total of 147 blameworthy crashes on the truck fleet. Last year that dropped to 120 and this year, at the time of interview, the figure was down to 67 on a fleet that includes 35 38-tonne trucks, 37 trailers and five rigids.

The reduction in crashes involving vehicles based at the Basingstoke depot – virtually all low speed – is leading to the programme being introduced at Keystone Distribution UK’s other depots in Hemel Hempstead and Heywood. Across the UK, the company runs a fleet comprising almost 300 pieces of equipment including 150 trailers, 108 units, 34 rigids and three vans.

Distributing from three locations and with more than 1,000 drivers, Keystone Distribution UK has a responsibility for exclusively supplying to all McDonald’s restaurants in the UK, their total product requirements including, cleaning materials and promotional items as well as food and packaging. The unique responsibility of Keystone Distribution UK is to ensure that McDonald’s restaurants have 100% product availability 24 hours a day, seven days a week. To achieve this, orders are taken from hundreds of restaurants every day and up to one million cases are delivered each week to restaurants across the length and breadth of the UK including the Isle of Man and Channel Islands.

Keystone Distribution UK was established more than 30 years ago in partnership with McDonald’s as its UK baker of hamburger buns and has grown with McDonald’s.

Today McDonald’s restaurants receive an average of three deliveries a week.

Apart from completing a psychometric test, drivers applying for a job with Keystone Distribution UK will complete the online Driving Standards Agency theory test and undergo an on-the-road driving assessment under the watchful eye of DSA qualified instructor Mr Barker. The results from all three are then reported back to the interviewer and Mr Barker said: “The results of the psychometric test form a major part of the recruitment process because everyone can drive to a test standard if they really want to.

“Drivers are the public face of the company and we want to employ people with the right attitude on the road and the right communication skills. Psychometric testing weeds out the quicktempered, fiery characters who are perhaps likely to take a big risk. We don’t want those type of people driving our trucks because they will get wound up quickly and that attitude may result in a crash.”

Testing

Since introducing psychometric testing ‘eight or nine’ would-be new drivers have been rejected because of the results obtained. Upon recruitment drivers complete an in depth training programme with one of Keystone Distribution UK’s driver trainers. They also undertake an annual driving assessment and in the near future another psychometric test will be completed at this stage.

Drivers who have two crashes under go additional driver training with a third crash resulting in disciplinary action which, following an initial interview, could be escalated to ultimately result in a dismissal.

Apart from the introduction of psychometric testing, an analysis of crashes involving company trucks also revealed that shift patterns could be to blame. Most incidents occurred on the day drivers returned following their days off during which they hadn’t been driving an HGV and towards the end of their shifts.

“Drivers were getting tired and not paying attention so we have re-arranged shifts and that move together with the introduction of psychometric testing is paying dividends,” said Mr Barker. “Annual psychometric testing will be introduced because issues may occur in drivers’ lives that impact on their decision-making behind the wheel. We want to find out if drivers have problems and then be able to help them. Overall the tests have shown that those people who we recruit have the right attitude behind the wheel.”

Profiling set to be the next big ‘must have’

Personality profiling is predicted to become the next ‘must have’ in the armoury of safety-focused companies as they reduce their risk exposure.

Leading occupational road risk management company Peak Performance claims to have been the first organisations to introduce psychometric profiling when it launched its Fleet Driver Risk Index, which was developed in conjunction with Cranfield University (RoadSafe: winter 2005/06).

It identifies those drivers most likely to be at risk through their driving behaviours with specific training interventions and driver awareness workshops linked to the output from the FDRI to allow fleets to more carefully target their driver safety and risk management strategies.

Three years after launch and Peak Performance director of sales Richard Hill says: “The market, while initially cautious, has now become very receptive to this unique product. We believe it is the most accurate method of identifying risk and predicting accident involvement through driver behaviour. We have totally changed the way the market goes about risk assessing drivers.”

Meanwhile, Stephen Sharp, director of PeopleMaps, which is working with Keystone Distribution UK, says psychometric testing was historically expensive, but the arrival of cheaper online testing and a tumbling in costs has increased interest and opened up the market. Its web-based tests cost £25 per person with discounts for multiple users.

The company developed its driver-based psychometric testing after an approach from south west-based The Road Safety Solution, which provides driver training to companies and individuals.

The development has led recently to the Driving Instructors Association (DIA) launching a new online service to allow driving instructors to produce psychometric profiles of learner drivers (see article below).

Peak Performance’s FDRI, which was developed by Dr Lisa Dorn, who starred in the BBC TV series ‘Road Rage’ and is director of the Driving Research Group at Cranfield University, is based on 20 years of academic research into the psychology of driver behaviour and uses psychometric principles to predict how company car drivers are likely to behave behind the wheel by measuring 12 behavioural factors.

Human factors contribute to around 95% of road traffic crashes and experts say that using psychometric testing will allow companies to identify high-risk drivers. Once identified, bespoke training solutions can then be put in place on an individual basis.

However, there is marketplace confusion between psychometric testing and the myriad of online driver profiling products that have been launched in recent years by a raft of risk management companies.

Psychometric testing focuses on an individual’s personality in terms of how it could impact on their ability as a driver, it seeks to analyse a person’s levels of concentration and patience – both essential qualities of good driving. It also highlights which individual personality traits could lead them to driving badly.

Analysis

Supporters of such in depth analysis argue that the more simplistic online profiling typically challenges drivers’ knowledge of driving and the Highway Code rather than their ability to drive.

Mr Sharp said: “Psychometric testing has many forms. Our system is based on decisionmaking and communication. With the DIA taking our service on board, I believe there will also be interest from the Department for Transport as its looks to reform driver training in the UK. In the future I think insurers will also be interested in the initiative.”

He added: “Psychometric testing is a hugely important step forward when focusing on the individual as a risk centre. In the driving arena it promises to be a huge growth area because the cost has fallen and the know-how behind psychometric testing has been around for 60 years. Companies looking to reduce their atwork driving risk exposure need to know that a person’s mentality is right.”

Geoff Moore, joint managing director of The Road Safety Solution, said: “A number of risk management providers have online assessments that define a driver as ‘low’, ‘medium’ or ‘high’ risk. But we felt that there was some danger in simply labelling an individual as ‘high’ risk because of how they answered a questionnaire online.

“We believed that maybe they were ‘high’ risk because of their personality, which is why we offer psychometric testing. Drivers and employers need to understand individual personalities to appreciate someone’s driving style.”

For example a hard-nosed company sales rep may have a very competitive personality and every aspect of their entire life is conducted at a rapid pace. That may not naturally be conducive to being the best driver on the road.

“But, said Mr Moore: “If both the sales rep and the company understand that it doesn’t mean they don’t have everything under control.”

While The Road Safety Solution says it has had lots of interest in psychometric testing, Mr Moore acknowledges that companies like the ‘tick box’ multi question approach of an online driving assessment resulting in a computer generated drivers’ score.

Minimise

“Companies want to minimise their costs and managers don’t want to read a psychometric report,” he said. “We are looking at offering an online assessment to make sure we have all available risk management options covered. But, every driver can develop new skills and attitudes and you can’t do that from an online assessment. It is about finding a balance.”

But, Peak Performance is so convinced of the merits of the FDRI that it no longer pro-actively markets online profiling.

Mr Hill said: “There will be a place for online profiling because there will be fleets that only want to do the bear minimum in terms of safety. If people want to tick a box then a simple drivers’ risk assessment may well be sufficient.

“But other fleets that are committed to driving a safety culture will look at the most appropriate tools to identify risk and then mitigate against it. And that is why they are going down the FDRI route.”

Improving poor attitude in learners

THE adoption of psychometric profiling of learner drivers is aimed at improving what is viewed as a ‘poor attitude’ to safe and responsible driving by the Driving Instructors’ Association (DIA).

The DIA’s online service enables driving instructors to produce psychometric profiles of learner drivers. In turn this will allow instructors to develop personalised training programmes for individual candidates, enabling them to identify areas of strength and any weaknesses that need to be addressed.

The new service, developed by PeopleMaps, comes during the Government’s current public consultation on ‘Learning to Drive’ (RoadSafe: summer 2008), the responses to which will form the basis of what is widely expected to be the biggest reform of the driver training and testing system in the UK since the introduction of the L-test.

Of the 750,000 people who pass their driving test annually, three-quarters are under 25 and 20% will have a crash within six months of qualifying.

With the focus on reducing the number of newly qualified drivers killed and injured on Britain’s roads, personality profiling is viewed as a potential major breakthrough.

Eddie Barnaville, chief executive of the DIA, said: “The current driving test assesses people’s conventional driving skills - hand/ eye/foot co-ordination, vehicle manoeuvring skills, and very basic knowledge of the rules of the road. What it doesn’t take into account is a driver’s attitude towards driving - and the way drivers think is the most vital part of safe driving.

“Many young drivers have a poor attitude to safe and responsible driving. Many see themselves as risk takers, happy to break the speed limit or jump a red light. Psychometric profiling will help instructors identify these traits, and allow them to modify their training to deal with them.”

Apart from Keystone Distribution UK, psychometric profiling is used by Arriva, which operates more than 6,500 buses in Britain. It uses a psychometric test to assess new drivers, who face a 50% 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 seen fatalities involving its buses reduced by 31%.

It’s the attitude that counts

INFLUENCING driver behaviour and attitude is crucial to reducing the likelihood of a crash so using psychometric profiling to manage risk has the potential to make significant improvements in the frequency and severity of vehicle operator crashes, according to Dr Lisa Dorn, director of the Driving Research Group at Cranfield University.

The organisation has pioneered the development of psychometric ‘instruments’ for self-assessment and driver education purposes and Dr Dorn said: “Research shows that fatigue brought about by driving for long periods of time is a major factor [in a crash], as well as driving under time pressures to meet schedules.

“Underpinning these two major factors though are the attitudes, beliefs and motivations that influence a driver’s decision making. For example, it’s not fatigue that causes drivers to crash – it’s their decision to carry on driving when they know they are sleepy. It’s not time pressure that causes people to crash - it’s weather a driver decides to speed or drive too close when they are late.”

Writing in Freight Transport Review, she added: “The decisions a driver makes stem from a complex mixture of past experiences, personality, and traffic events at the time.

“There are also a number of biases in the way drivers think. For example, drivers often fool themselves into believing that their driving is not dangerous and that they are unlikely to be involved in a crash. A standardized framework to address potential at-risk driver behaviour is unlikely to be effective unless the intervention is tailored to the individual driver.

“The future of driver education then must be on raising awareness about how personal goals and motivations affect decision-making and increase the risk of being involved in a crash.”

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