Colorado's Express Consent License Hearing Rules

Express Consent: you already agreed to the test

Under Colorado’s Express Consent law (C.R.S. § 42-4-1301.1), driving on a Colorado road means you have already consented to a chemical test of your breath, blood, urine, or saliva when an officer has probable cause to believe you were driving under the influence.

You face a choice at the roadside, and both paths carry a cost:

Either way, the officer takes your license and hands you a notice that doubles as a temporary permit. That notice is also the starting gun.

The 7-day window

From the date of your arrest, you have 7 calendar days to request a hearing with the DMV. If you took a blood test, the clock runs from the date on your mailed notice instead.

Two things people get wrong and cannot afford to:

• Request the hearing in time, and your license stays valid until the hearing is held, often on a temporary permit, and you get to challenge the revocation.
• This is the part that catches people. They fix on the court date printed weeks out while the 7-day DMV window closes silently. By the time the criminal case moves, the license is already gone.

At the hearing, the arresting officer can be required to appear and testify under oath. Your attorney cross-examines that officer about the stop, the probable cause, how the test was administered, and whether the Express Consent advisement was given correctly. That testimony is locked in early, on the record, before the criminal case is built.

For Jeremy Loew, that is the tactical value. As a former prosecutor, he knows how these stops get documented and where the officer’s account tends to break down. The DMV hearing lets him test that account under oath early, and what the officer says there can shape the criminal defense that follows. A weak stop or a botched Express Consent advisement is a problem for the state on both tracks at once.

The technical defenses still apply

Whether the DMV is relying on a test result or a refusal, the same vulnerabilities that matter in the criminal case matter here:

How to act, and act fast

If you were arrested for DUI in Colorado Springs, the 7-day DMV clock is already running, and it does not pause for anything. Request the hearing through the Colorado Department of Revenue or the DMV, and do it before the window closes.

The single most costly mistake is assuming the license question waits for the criminal case. It does not.

The sooner Jeremy Loew is involved, the sooner the hearing gets requested and the officer’s account gets tested under oath.

Call (719) 387-4111 for a free consultation. Serving Colorado Springs and El Paso County.