Most states require physicians to inform the DMV when they diagnose you with any medical or mental condition that may affect your ability to drive safely. Some common conditions that may impact your ability to drive safely include:
- lapse of consciousness
- Alzheimer’s disease,
- cataracts,
- dementia,
- diabetes, and
- macular degeneration.
These conditions are a common cause of driver’s license suspensions for elderly drivers. Though drivers of all ages can be affected.
Once the DMV receives a report from a physician regarding your inability to drive safely, it can take any of the following actions:
- do nothing (if the Department finds that you pose no safety risk),
- ask for further medical information,
- conduct a “reexamination hearing,” or
- in rare cases, immediately suspend or revoke your driving privileges.
The DMV must notify you in writing of its final decision.
What is a doctor’s duty to report medical conditions to the DMV?
Under California law, doctors are required to report you to the DMV if you suffer from any medical or mental condition that may impact your ability to drive safely. Note that doctors themselves cannot directly revoke your driver’s license. Though they can put the process in motion.
This type of report is known as a “confidential morbidity report.”
Only doctors are required by law to report medical conditions to the DMV. Other parties have the option to do so, including:
- law enforcement officers,
- judges,
- family members,
- friends,
- concerned private citizens, and
- even you (in a driver’s license application or during a visit to the DMV).
California Vehicle Code 12806 VC lets the DMV suspend a license for a medical condition. Though the DMV may only do this if the condition actually affects your ability to drive safely.
What does the DMV do when it receives a report about a medical condition?
After receiving a report about you, the DMV will conduct an initial safety risk assessment.
The Department can then take any of the following actions:
- do nothing (if the department decides there is no safety risk),
- request more information, in the form of a “Driver Medical Evaluation” (“DME”),
- schedule a “reexamination hearing” with you, or
- in rare cases, immediately suspend or revoke your driver’s license.
What is a “Driver Medical Evaluation” (“DME”) form?
In some cases, after receiving a report about you, the DMV will require more information. In this case, it may ask you to submit a DME form.
This form requires you to provide the DMV with a comprehensive health history. You must complete and return the DME within 26 days. You have to sign the DME under penalty of prosecution for the California crime of perjury.
A DME also requires information from your doctor. “Information” includes:
- a medical diagnosis,
- a treatment plan, and
- anything else that might relate to your driving ability.
The DMV will then review the DME. If it determines that you do not pose a safety risk, it will take no further action.
If you do not complete the DME, the DMV can suspend your driver’s license.
What is a California DMV reexamination hearing?
If the DMV decides your medical condition might pose a potential safety risk, it will schedule a “reexamination hearing.” This is an in-person evaluation to determine if you have the physical and mental skills to drive a car safely.
The hearing takes place at a local California DMV driver safety office and it is conducted by a DMV hearing officer.
The hearing officer may do any of the following after conducting the hearing:
- allow you to keep your license without any restrictions,
- schedule a follow-up reexamination to obtain more information,
- put you on “Medical Probation I” (which requires you to comply with a specific medical regimen and to report any medical changes to the DMV),
- place you on “Medical Probation II” (similar to Medical Probation I, but also requires you to submit annual medical reports even if nothing has changed),
- issue you a limited term license for one or two years and require you to return at the end of that time for a reevaluation,
- issue a restricted license, allowing you to drive as long as you comply with specific conditions such as wearing corrective lenses or not driving at night,
- suspend your driver’s license (allowing you to get it back if you later prove you no longer present a safety risk), or
- permanently revoke your driving privileges (if the hearing officer determines the condition cannot be compensated for and is unlikely to improve).
The DMV must notify you in writing of the hearing officer’s decision.
If you are not happy with the outcome of a DMV hearing, you may request a “departmental review.” This request must be made within 15 days of notice of the original hearing officer’s decision.
At the departmental review, the DMV will review the reexamination and hearing records, including all the evidence presented by the DMV and you. It then determines whether the hearing officer made the correct decision.
Have a reexamination hearing coming up? Learn about all the possible outcomes in this video and get in touch with our reexamination lawyers at the Shouse Law Group.
Additional resources
For more detailed information, refer to these scholarly articles:
- Multiple Chronic Medical Conditions and Associated Driving Risk: A Systematic Review – Traffic Injury Prevention.
- Comparison of Unsafe Driving Across Medical Conditions – Mayo Clinic Proceedings.
- Older drivers, medical condition, medical impairment and crash risk – Accident Analysis & Prevention.
- Driving Patterns and Medical Conditions in Older Women – Journal of the American Geriatric Society.
- Medical restrictions to driving: the awareness of patients and doctors – Postgraduate Medical Journal.
