LAKEWOOD, Colo. -- New legislation is in the works that would take Colorado's most dangerous drivers off the road in days or weeks, instead of months, following a conviction. The legislation was sparked by a CALL7 Investigation.

"When you have repeat offenders, people who have shown they have an inability to drive in a safe and responsible manner, if they stay on the roads that is a risk to all of us," said Colorado House Speaker Terrance Carroll.

Carroll says it is a systemic problem that allows drivers who should be off the road to get months of extension before showing up to a required hearing where their license is officially suspended.

Officials with the Colorado Department of Revenue agree and sent a letter recommending new legislation aimed at eliminating the extension.

Carroll says a draft of the legislation should come in the next few weeks and, if passed, bad drivers would be off the road in a matter of days or weeks, rather than up to eight months.

Last year, CALL7 Investigators discovered that the number of the Coloradans who still had licenses, but should have lost driving privileges after accumulating too many points, had eclipsed 5,200.

Under state law, when a driver licensed in Colorado accrues 12 points in driving infractions in 12 months, or 6 points if the driver is under the age of 18, that driver's license is supposed to be suspended.

But first the driver is entitled to an administrative hearing with a hearing officer. However, those hearings are backlogged as much as seven months, leaving the state's worst drivers on the road.

CALL7 Investigator John Ferrugia learned it was 5,279 drivers and of those, 268 have committed further traffic offenses and remain behind the wheel.

"I thought that once he was sentenced and pled guilty that he would then lose his license," Diane Sueper told Ferrugia. She's talking about a teenager who ran a red light in May and broadsided her husband's car. Dave Sueper, 41, was killed.

Months after the crash, friends of the Sueper family told Diane they had seen the teenager on the road.

"I found out that he is still driving," said Diane Sueper.

The teenager should have lost his license based on the points accumulated from the fatal crash as well as a speeding ticket he received two weeks prior.

CALL7 Investigators watched as the teenager drove to school. We are not identifying him because the teenager is driving legally since he has not had an administration hearing with the Division of Motor Vehicles.

Diane Sueper told 7NEWS, "The worst drivers in the state are still on the road and I feel helpless. I really feel like the system has let me down. Something needs to be changed. For all of us. Not even for me and my kids, but for you and everybody. It's not right."

The DMV backlog does not affect drunken driving cases. State law requires that those cases get first priority and must have a hearing within 60 days of the conviction.

As more DUI cases come in, everyone else who has accumulated too many points is pushed further back in a queue, waiting for a hearing date with one of the 17 hearing officers in the state.

"I want to know how it is we got to where we're at and the rationale behind it," explained Matt Cook in December.

Cook is the director of enforcement for the Division of Motor Vehicles.

"Obviously we weren't aware of it. We thank you for bringing it to our attention, but it requires dollars. It requires technical expertise from the IT section to go in and data mine and bring that data to surface," Cook explained.

He told Ferrugia the backlog is something that built up over time and at one point a few years ago, the division had fewer than six hearing officers to cover the entire state.

There are approximately 34,000 hearings a year.

"What was your reaction when you found out there were more than 5,000 in that queue?" asked Ferrugia.

Cook replied, "I was obviously surprised. For whatever reason, I was led to believe it was around 3,000. Be that as it may, I want to find out how we got to where we're at and that's my job now. We don't want bad drivers on the road. We don't."