Reporting a bad driver in Minnesota

Minnesota 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.
• No Minnesota-specific line is listed here. We publish a patrol code only when a state police or DOT page carries it.

2. Reporting to Minnesota 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 Minnesota

• The non-emergency line of the Minnesota city 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

Administrative fitness process

Agency

Minnesota Department of Public Safety

Unit

Driver Evaluation Unit, as printed on the form — the DVS website addresses the same post to “Attn: Medical Unit”

Form

Request for Examination of Driver — PS31924-06 (01/16)

Where to send

Minnesota Department of Public Safety, Driver and Vehicle Services, Driver Evaluation Unit, 445 Minnesota St., Suite 170, St. Paul MN 55101-5170

Contact

Driver evaluation 651-296-2025

What information do I need to report a driver?

• Use form PS31924, Request for Examination of Driver, or send a signed letter to DVS.
• The request must include the driver's full name and date of birth (licence number if known), an explanation of why you believe they are an at-risk driver including any medical condition if known, and your own name, address and phone number.
• Sign it. The signature block asks for your printed name, your title or relationship to the driver, a phone number and the date — and, for an officer, a law enforcement agency and badge number.
• The form frames what you submit as “good cause for re-examination of this driver under Minnesota Statute 171.13”.
• You can file it online. DVS Online Services has an "All Form Submissions" section containing "Submit a Request for Driver Examination", which no sign-in is needed to reach. Its first step asks whether you know the driver's licence number; answer No and it requires their last name, date of birth and full street address instead, with an address-verification step. Or post the paper form to Driver and Vehicle Services, Attn: Medical Unit, 445 Minnesota St., Suite 170, St. Paul MN 55101-5170.
• Tick one or more of the nine boxes and describe them in the summary: general physical or health problem; diabetic loss of consciousness or voluntary control; vision problem; lack of physical driving skills; violation of an "ANY USE OF ALCOHOL/DRUG INVALIDATES LICENSE" restriction (attach a report verifying the alcohol or drug use); mental or emotional problem, which the form says includes ROAD RAGE and memory loss; loss of consciousness or voluntary control (seizures); lack of knowledge of traffic laws; or other.
• In the summary, describe in detail the driving actions or conditions that brought the driver to your attention and why you believe they should be re-examined, attaching any reports that would help the driver evaluator. Age alone cannot be considered good cause — and that is the statute, not just the form: § 171.13, subd. 3 says no examination shall be required only because a licensed driver has attained a certain age.

Will the driver find out who reported them?

Confidential if you are related to the driver, and expressly NOT if you are not. Minn. Stat. § 13.69, subd. 1(b) makes confidential "data concerning an individual's driving ability when that data is received from a member of the individual's family" — a member of the family, and nobody else. The form states the consequence in two sentences: "Reports from family members concerning an individual's ability to drive are confidential (M.S. 13.69). Driver and Vehicle Services is required to disclose the identity of all other person(s) reporting at the driver's request." So a relative's identity is protected by statute, while anyone else who files can be named to the driver simply because the driver asks — no court order needed. The DVS website's pair of sentences says the same in its own order: "If you are related to the driver, your statement is confidential. Your identity will not be shared with the driver unless ordered by a court of law." Both are about a relative; the court-order protection is the relative's, not everyone's.

What can the Minnesota Department of Public Safety do after a report?

• DVS schedules an appointment for the at-risk driver with a driver evaluator and writes to them with the date and time.
• After the interview the evaluator may require a written physician's or vision statement and a knowledge and road test, submitted within 30 days.
• DVS may allow the person to keep driving with limitations — roadway speed, time of day, or a set distance from home — and can require follow-up medical exams.
• If the driver fails to respond to the letter or keep the appointment, their driving privileges may be cancelled.
• A driver who must surrender their licence remains eligible for a Minnesota identification card.
• Under § 171.13, subd. 3 the commissioner may require an examination by whichever agency the commissioner directs, to determine incompetency, physical or mental disability or disease, or any other condition that might affect the driver exercising reasonable and ordinary control over a motor vehicle.
• If the examination leads the commissioner to believe the driver is an unsafe person to operate a motor vehicle on the public highways, the commissioner may cancel their driver's licence, and must give them written notice of the cancellation.

Statutory authority: Minn. Stat. § 171.13, subd. 3 (the commissioner's examination power, the cancellation that can follow, and the bar on requiring an examination for age alone); Minn. Stat. § 13.69, subd. 1(b) (confidentiality). DVS also lists Minn. Stat. §§ 171.04 and 171.14 and Minn. Rules 7409.2800, 7410.2100, 7410.2800, 7410.3000 and 7410.4400 as the law behind the at-risk driver process.

What this route can and cannot do

Minnesota is one of the few states whose form names driving behaviour outright — its tick-list includes lack of knowledge of traffic laws, lack of physical driving skills, and a mental or emotional problem that the form itself says includes ROAD RAGE — and it asks for the incident: date, time, location, whether there was an accident, whether a citation was issued. But it is still not a plate-based complaint. There is no plate field; the form asks for the driver's name, address, date of birth and driver's licence number, and says outright that failure to provide the information requested will result in no action being taken. And the remedy is re-examination under Minnesota Statute 171.13 — a test a capable but aggressive driver passes.