Look up a Colorado plate
See whether other drivers have filed reports against a plate.
A plate with no reports comes back clean — that is the common result, and it is not an error.
Avoidance & safety rules
- Do not follow or pursue the vehicle, under any circumstances.
- Do not try to read or photograph the plate if doing so means getting closer or driving unsafely.
- Do not engage. No gestures, no eye contact, no reply to an aggressive driver.
- Keep your distance and let them pass. Pull over somewhere public before you make a call, or have a passenger call.
- Note details only if it is safe: make, model and colour, full or partial plate, direction of travel, and the exact location or mile marker.
Does a Jerk Alert report reach the Colorado Department of Revenue, Division of Motor Vehicles? No — Jerk Alert filings are community records between drivers. They never reach the Colorado Department of Revenue, Division of Motor Vehicles, any other government body, or law enforcement, and they do not replace the calls in sections 1 and 2. If you are in danger, call 911. The Terms prohibit following, approaching, or identifying another driver on any Jerk Alert platform.
Colorado bad driver reporting & safety guide
1. If it is happening now immediate danger
Emergency hotlines
- 911 — for a driver who is an active danger to other people right now. That is a police matter, and no app is a substitute for the call.
- *CSP (*277) — Colorado State Patrol. Highway patrol line for dangerous driving as it happens.
It reaches a dispatcher who may send a trooper to a driver still on the road — use it while the driving is happening, and 911 for an immediate danger.
2. Reporting to Colorado law enforcement after the fact
Neither the hotlines above nor anything in this section is the licence-review route in section 3, and nothing filed on Jerk Alert reaches any of them.
Who takes the report in Colorado
- The non-emergency line of the Colorado municipal police department or county sheriff’s office with jurisdiction where it happened takes reports of dangerous driving that has already happened.
- Bring: the plate (full or partial) and state, the vehicle’s make, model and colour, the location, the date and time, the direction of travel, and what you saw.
- Expect a record rather than a ticket. An officer who did not witness the driving usually cannot cite for it, and what each agency acts on varies.
3. State DMV & licensing agency review
Public reporting accessNo — only immediate family, police or medical professionals can report a driver
The route exists, but only for people connected to the driver.
Who can file: Immediate family as defined in C.R.S. § 42-1-102(43.5), law enforcement and medical professionals — the DMV's own answer to “Who can request a re-test?”. A friend, a neighbour or a stranger has no route here.
Administrative fitness process
The details, for the people Colorado allows to file.
- Agency
- Colorado Department of Revenue, Division of Motor Vehicles
- Unit
- Driver Control Section
- Form
- No citizen form. A relative writes their own request — there is no template — and emails it to the DMV.
- Contact
- dor_mvhelpdesk@state.co.us — the address the DMV gives concerned family members for a re-examination request
What information do I need to report a driver?
- There is no form for a family member to fill in. The DMV's instruction is to email a request to dor_mvhelpdesk@state.co.us.
- The email must include the driver's name and date of birth, the reason for concern, and your own name and relationship to the driver.
- Set out the specific circumstances and describe the driver's actions that led to the request — the re-examination rule requires the request to detail them.
- The DMV also receives information from physicians, physician assistants and optometrists, from DMV employees and agents, and from law enforcement officers acting in their official capacity. Those routes use their own forms, not yours.
Will the driver find out who reported them?
NOT confidential, and Colorado says so in plain words. The DMV's own page asks “If I report a family member, is it anonymous?” and answers: “No, the family member who makes a report must give their name and relationship to the loved one. The driver who is required to complete a re-examination has the right to know who submitted the re-examination request to the Department and can make a record request on myDMV.Colorado.gov.” There is no confidentiality pledge, no redaction and no discretion to withhold — the driver asks, and they are told.
What can the Colorado Department of Revenue, Division of Motor Vehicles do after a report?
- Re-examination in Colorado means a Department-required eye examination, written test and driving examination to determine fitness to drive.
- The DMV mails a letter setting out how to comply with the re-examination request. If the driver passes before the action date, the action is rescinded and they keep their licence.
- Otherwise the driver must submit an approved medical or eye exam within 180 days of receiving the letter, pay a reinstatement fee, and provide proof of auto liability insurance (SR-22) for three years from the reinstatement date — and after reinstatement complete all the testing: eye exam, driving knowledge test and driving skills test.
- Where a physician marks ‘need DMV re-examination in 1 year’ on the DR 2401 or DR 2402, the Department notifies the driver 11 months later that they must complete an eye, written and driving examination within 30 days.
- Failure to return an approved DR 2401 or DR 2402 before the end of the 30th day after the notice leads to cancellation of the driving privilege.
Statutory authority: C.R.S. § 42-2-111(3) (evidence of incompetence, at least ten days' written notice, examination, and the deny / cancel / suspend / revoke / retain-with-restrictions outcomes under § 42-2-116, with refusal grounds for suspension or revocation and the decision reviewable by a court of record). 1 CCR 204-30, Rule 3 — § 2.1 names who may request a re-examination (physicians via DR 2401/2402, law enforcement via DR 2536, courts, immediate family on a written request, DMV employees and state-contracted driving-school staff); § 3 gives the driver 20 days after notice of cancellation to complete the eye, written and driving examinations, with a 60-day permit to retake a failed drive test.
Colorado is one of 18 of 51 US jurisdictions where a witness unrelated to the driver has no confirmed way to report them to the licensing agency (the 51-location study). That gap is one reason Jerk Alert exists.
Jerk Alert