Appealing a psychometric test failure

[Neatro]

I applied to Northern in 2022 and was offered a job depending on passing psychometrics/medical. Northern conducted the assessments and I failed.

I applied to LNER in 2025 and again was offered a job depending on passing psychometrics/medical. Northern conduct the psychometric tests on behalf of LNER as they do not have their own psychometric testing people. Again, I failed. The psychometric assessment people agreed that I had a case so with respect to people on here, their assesment of the situation (and they are the people running the show) tended to be in line with mine. I fortunately LNER declined to allow the appeal to continue simply stating that their standard had not been met.

The tests I did were continues (simply moving to a different terminal) with a short explanation of the requirements.

I posted the question to see if anyone had appealed these tests successfully and to offer me advice. I appreciate some will agree with my cause (but it appears most don't). That's fine, I'm an adult and I can accept that I could be wrong in this scenario. It still stands that Northern Psychometric people (who were contracted by LNER) agreed that I had a case.

Thank you again

It's not that we're not agreeing with your cause, if Northerns in-house team say you have a case then by all means pursue it as far as you feel you need to.

But your original comment was very vague which led to confusion, we still don't know if you've been corrected purely on astigmatism or whether you've had eyesight corrected too, especially as astigmatism is more common with people who need eyesight correction also.

I also feel like the people who've successfully appealed an assessment failure would be an extremely small group of people, and had different reasons that yours so even if you had a "yes" it may not be for astigmatism so is no help either way.

Don't feel like we're disagreeing with you, we all just had simply different testing procedures. Mine was the same as AverageJoes.

We did the square test, left for 5-10 minutes while they set up then rinsed and repeated with every other computer test.

If you did them continuously without a break and you felt like your concentration and or eyesight was beginning to worsen doing the tests then I'd agree you may have a case but as you've said LNER have decided not to give you the opportunity.

 

[Leon Tallis]

My eyes were tested around three years earlier as well and it was not diagnosed then.

Apologies, when you said “The condition can be easily corrected but imagine that this is something which has developed over a persons lifetime and therefore is so subtle, it would not be apparent to the person concerned.”, I thought that was relevant to you.

That’s a huge deterioration from having perfect eyesight three years ago to struggling to distinguish between a traffic light and brake light on a computer screen now. I‘d be worried how much worse it might be in another three years when you’re navigating 500 tonnes of machinery at 125mph.

 

[eskeemo7]

Yes I agree, my initial post was vague.

I have no issues with people disagreeing with me or challenging my thought processes.

To give a direct answer, my sight requires correction as well as the astigmatism. How severe that is, I don't know because it's not my area. What I do know is that my corrected vision is razor sharp comparative to uncorrected.

I may contact Northern (testing centre) to enquire however, I have accepted that I am stuck where I am for another 7 years as I am effectively pension trapped. Hopefully there will be some changes to the testing procedures at some point allowing me another crack in the future.

Thanks to all for your contribution though. I genuinely appreciate your time

 

[choochoochoo]

On the subject of being safe to drive a car - yes I am safe. DVLA standards require a person to be able to read a standard registration plate at a distance of 20 metres in good daylight. There are significant differences between this and staring at a computer screen for hours on end.

A point I would like to make is that there is a lot of opinion on here whereas an expert in eye health, deemed that it did put me at a detriment. In fairness, that person is not an expert in psychometric tests so a balanced interpretation is required but would it have been too much to expect some level of discretion?

The ATAVT test is a traffic test. So if you can see traffic as deemed safe by the DVLA/DVSA then you’d be able to adequately see the traffic on the ATAVT test. You’re not staring at a screen. You’re trying to take in as much information as you can in a limited time.

Your astigmatism would have to be very bad to not be able to tell the difference between a brake light and a traffic light. I’ve got astigmatism, and it’s pretty bad but I can definitely tell that difference with or without my glasses.

 

[eskeemo7]

Apologies, when you said “The condition can be easily corrected but imagine that this is something which has developed over a persons lifetime and therefore is so subtle, it would not be apparent to the person concerned.”, I thought that was relevant to you.

That’s a huge deterioration from having perfect eyesight three years ago to struggling to distinguish between a traffic light and brake light on a computer screen now. I‘d be worried how much worse it might be in another three years when you’re navigating 500 tonnes of machinery at 125mph.

I see your point however, it was a work based eye test (3 years ago) and in retrospect, judged against the one I recently had (which also included an advanced element which I paid for in addition to the freebie) the work based one was basic. Again, this isn't my area so how could I have known that at the time that there was such a difference in the capability of individual tests?

Also, at what point does something become noticeable when it is subtle? Slight degradation in abilities is natural as a person ages so I dare say that whilst my eyesight was considered adequate whilst uncorrected, there had to be a point at which this is no longer the case.

To make the pont again, if the psychometric assessment people thought I had a case but (as far as I can see) an individual person from LNER safety and operations dept decided not to give me that chance, I'm happy that my claim was justified. Clearly that hasn't had the desired effect and probably never will.

 

[Bletchleyite]

And I can't see it affecting your concentration with an image that appears and disappears within a couple of seconds.

I've never done these tests. However I do have both astigmatism and an issue coordinating my eyes together, both corrected using glasses, cylinder and prism. Without my glasses (and if missing either or both of these corrections) I find "scanning" a screen for things quite difficult and tiring. However because eyesight correction is so common (and because in most cases glasses can completely correct it) it tends not to be regarded as a disability.

Thus I can understand both the OP's position and LNER's, just in case that helps those who aren't glasses wearers to understand the situation.

 

[Volvictof]

Sometimes medical professionals have a tendency to say things that they can’t really be certain of. For example I've had colleagues state that the doctor told them they definitely caught a virus at work. Which is something they clearly can’t be sure of. An optician saying it will affect your ability to do that test is not really solid enough for an appeal because it’s not really a provable fact.
I actually did the psychometrics with bad vision and an astigmatism which wasn’t picked up upon until I got into training (the company medical even signed me off as 20/20 Vision) But I managed the psychometrics just fine. So I think it’s debatable how much it affected you.
To give you an idea of how lenient they are I know of a full group that failed the concentration test when the sensor activated lights turned off mid test. As far as I know, none of their appeals were successful.
I think if northern were willing to give it a go it might be worth applying to them. And then if you get to do them again and pass, you could make the jump to LNER with an existing pass.

 

[eskeemo7]

I'm grateful for your comments and I can see your point given that you took and passed the tests with the same condition. Thanks

 

[Neatro]

I've never done these tests. However I do have both astigmatism and an issue coordinating my eyes together, both corrected using glasses, cylinder and prism. Without my glasses (and if missing either or both of these corrections) I find "scanning" a screen for things quite difficult and tiring. However because eyesight correction is so common (and because in most cases glasses can completely correct it) it tends not to be regarded as a disability.

Thus I can understand both the OP's position and LNER's, just in case that helps those who aren't glasses wearers to understand the situation.

For pure context, you're not scanning a whole computer screen or not in my case. It was very small in the centre of your screen that showed a still picture for a brief second and you had to answer what you saw.

And you may be a driver (I don't know) but these tests are unfortunately meant to weed out candidates that have trouble with these tests whether your eyesight is corrected or not. Plus with the sheer amount of applicants they're never short of people who can pass the tests which is why I said I can only see successful appeals being very rare.

I wear glasses to correct my vision in one eye and I found it difficult as you've not even got enough time to scan before it's gone again.

 

[Spincity]

Sorry, this condition is not going to reach the threshold of disability discrimination, I cannot see any legal advisor taking this on. If you vision was that much of an issue, I’m surprised you passed the group bourdon, with blurred vision surely this would have been an issue.

 

[eskeemo7]

With respect, I disagree. I've already explained why although again, I can see your point

 

[transportphoto]

I think the query has been answered.