Colorado DMV Backlog Leaves Thousands of Cited Drivers on the Road

A local Colorado television station investigation has revealed that thousands of drivers who should have lost their licenses after accumulating an excess of marks on their driving record are still on the road due to a seven month Department of Motor Vehicles (DMV) backlog.

Under Colorado state law, when a driver accumulates twelve points on their driving record over the course of twelve months or six points on their record if the individual is under the age of eighteen, the individual's license must be revoked. However, before the DMV can revoke an individual's license, the driver is entitled to an administrative hearing with the DMV in order to challenge the revocation of their license.

According to the head of enforcement for the Colorado DMV, Matt Cook, it can sometimes take months before an administrative DMV hearing can be put on calendar. As those months pass, drivers maintain full possession of their driving privileges. Cook reiterated this point, stating, "Until you have a hearing or fail to respond to the opportunity to have a hearing, you're still licensed."

The main problem with Colorado's DMV administrative hearing process is that the state has only seventeen hearing officers to handle all of the DMV hearings that come through the office. Last year, the seventeen hearing officers handled approximately thirty four thousand cases, which breaks down to approximately two thousand cases per hearing officer per year. In order to remedy this situation, Cook suggested charging drivers with more serious offenses like Vehicular Homicide or Aggravated Assault with a Motor Vehicle, which require an immediate revocation of the driver's license upon conviction.

In response to the results of the investigation, Colorado's newly elected Speaker of the House, Terrance Carroll stated, "I'm absolutely flabbergasted and I'm trying to figure out what broke down in the system that these people still have their licenses even after committing driving offenses that should have caused them to lose their license."

Carroll went on to say, "Now that I am aware of the problem the next step is get everyone in the same room together and figure out what we can do and what we can't do to move forward. The next step after that is to actually ask for a legislative audit to see if we can get a handle on this and I do want to sit down with all the stakeholders to find out if there's a legislative fix we can have in January because I think we may need one."

What Carroll found most disconcerting was the types of people who were benefitting from the DMV backlog. He argued, "If you've reached a point where your license should be revoked because you've reached a number of violations, you've shown that you can't drive well. You've shown that you shouldn't be on the roadway and that you're a threat to everyone else of the highways or the roadways and you shouldn't have your license." The state of Colorado is now considering the DMV's backlog a threat to public safety, which they say will be handled accordingly.

This backlog, however, does not apply to drunk drivers. Colorado state law requires that driving under the influence cases be given first priority for DMV hearings, which is adding to the extreme backlog of other DMV hearing requests. As mandated by Colorado law, individuals arrested on suspicion of driving under the influence must be provided an opportunity for a hearing at the Department of Motor Vehicles within sixty days of their DUI conviction.

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