Psychological assessments should become part of the UK driving test, a road safety expert has urged.

Robert Gifford, director of a road safety charity, said the current system 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.

The government said it would keep an open mind over what changes might be brought in.

'Risk-takers' Mr Gifford, executive director of the Parliamentary Advisory Council for Transport Safety (PACTS), said the current test assessed people's technical ability - their hand, eye and foot co-ordination. But he said it failed to look at their psychological attitude to the road. For example, it fails to assess if they see themselves as risk-takers, making them more likely to break the speed limit or jump a red light.

He said a psychometric assessment would help identify such faults and instructors and examiners would then be able to modify the person's behaviour.