Families report a parent's dementia-related driving to the DMV by filing a written reexamination request with the state's driver licensing agency, naming the specific safety concerns observed. Most states accept these reports from relatives, though the exact form, signature rules, and confidentiality protections differ by state. The process exists because a dementia diagnosis does not automatically end a driver's license — DMV staff, not family members, decide whether someone keeps driving, based on documented evidence of unsafe behavior. Knowing which form to file, what the agency does with it, and what the diagnosis itself does or doesn't trigger helps families act without guessing.
Medical information disclaimer: This article is for general educational purposes only and does not provide medical advice, diagnosis, or treatment. Always consult a physician or other qualified health professional about symptoms, medications, tests, or treatment decisions.
Table of Contents
- What Form Do You File, and What Happens to It?
- Can a Family Member's Identity Stay Private?
- Does a Doctor Have to Report Instead of the Family?
- What Should You Document Before You File?
- Frequently Asked Questions
What Form Do You File, and What Happens to It?
In California, families use Form DS-699, "Request for Driver Reexamination," which any person — including a relative — can submit after observing unsafe driving. The form must be signed, but it lets the reporter ask the DMV to withhold their identity from the driver named in it. Reports can come from peace officers, physicians, family members, relatives, or acquaintances, and California's DMV can respond with a vision test, written test, in-person interview, or road test before deciding whether to restrict or revoke the license, according to the agency's "Potentially Unsafe Driver" fast facts. Other states run similar reexamination processes through different forms and units. In New Jersey, Form MR-5 routes a family or physician report to the Motor Vehicle Commission's Medical Fitness Review Unit, and it explicitly lists "mental or physical disorders which may affect …
ability to safely operate a motor vehicle" as a qualifying reason to request reexamination. North Carolina's DMV Medical Review Unit uses its own request form and will reject it outright if it arrives unsigned; the unit then investigates the specific concerns the family describes before taking any action, per the state's medical-request form. Anonymity rules vary sharply. Alaska's Division of Motor Vehicles requires reexamination requests in writing to its Driver Services office and states it will not accept secondhand or anonymous reports — a contrast to California's option to keep the reporter's name from the driver, according to Alaska DOA DMV's medical impairment page. Before filing, a family should confirm whether their state allows a confidential report or requires the driver to know who reported them.
Can a Family Member's Identity Stay Private?
California Vehicle Code §1808.5 makes DMV records that document a reported physical or mental condition confidential, barring their release to the public except where another law requires it, per the DMV's fast-facts page on unsafe drivers. Combined with the DS-699's option to withhold the reporter's name, this means a California family can trigger a reexamination without the parent necessarily learning who filed it. That protection is not universal.
Alaska's refusal to accept anonymous or secondhand reports means a family there should expect the driver to learn who made the request. North Carolina's signature requirement works the same way — an unsigned, and therefore unverifiable, report doesn't get investigated at all. A family weighing whether to report should check their own state's rule before assuming the confidentiality that applies in California applies everywhere.
Does a Doctor Have to Report Instead of the Family?
In some states, a physician's report replaces or supplements a family's. California Health and Safety Code §103900 requires physicians to report any patient diagnosed with dementia, including Alzheimer's disease, to local health officials, who forward that report to the DMV for a licensing decision — a separate channel from the family-initiated DS-699, according to UCSF Fresno's Alzheimer's and Memory Center. Nationally, this obligation is the exception rather than the rule. A 2024 study in JAMA Network Open found only four U.S.
states explicitly require clinicians to report a dementia diagnosis to the DMV, while 14 states instead require the diagnosed person to self-report. That split matters directly to families: in a state without mandatory physician reporting and without reliable self-reporting, a family's own DMV filing may be the only thing that puts the diagnosis in front of licensing staff at all. The same study found a tradeoff behind mandatory clinician-reporting laws. Primary care physicians practicing in states that require them to report a dementia diagnosis had a 59% higher probability of underdiagnosing the condition, which the researchers linked to patients concealing symptoms out of fear of losing their license. For families, this means a parent may already be minimizing memory or driving problems during doctor visits specifically because reporting is mandatory where they live — one reason a family's own observations, filed directly with the DMV, can carry real weight regardless of what a physician reports.
What Should You Document Before You File?
DMV reexamination units act on specific, described behavior, not a diagnosis alone. AAA's senior-driving guidance lists concrete warning signs worth documenting: getting lost on familiar routes, missing traffic signs, hitting curbs, and confusing the brake and gas pedals, according to AAA's guidance on senior driving and dementia. These are the kinds of observations that belong on a DS-699, an MR-5, or an equivalent state form, because reexamination staff are evaluating driving ability, not the diagnosis itself.
AAA's guidance also states plainly that a dementia diagnosis alone does not require a driver to stop immediately. That's consistent with how the reexamination process works in every state covered here: North Carolina's Medical Review Unit investigates the specific concerns described rather than acting on the diagnosis as a trigger on its own, and California's process can end in anything from a license restriction to a full revocation, depending on what the vision test, written test, interview, or road test shows. Before filing, a family should write down dates, locations, and specific incidents — a wrong turn on a known route, a missed stop sign, a curb strike — rather than describing the parent's memory loss in general terms. That specificity is what DMV staff in every state act on.
Frequently Asked Questions
Will the DMV tell my parent that I filed the report?
It depends on the state. California's DS-699 lets you ask that your identity be withheld, but Alaska's DMV will not accept anonymous or secondhand reports at all, so the driver there will likely learn who reported them.
Does my parent's dementia diagnosis automatically trigger a report to the DMV?
Only in states with mandatory physician reporting, which the JAMA Network Open study found applies in just four states; 14 others rely on the diagnosed person to self-report, and elsewhere a family's own filing may be the main way the DMV learns of a concern.
What if I don't sign the reexamination request?
North Carolina's DMV Medical Review Unit rejects unsigned requests outright, so check your state's form before submitting — an unsigned report there won't be investigated.
