Vail imposes its own fine on unchained vehicles amid a surge in I-70 closures this winter

Interstate 70 was unusually quiet outside the Vail Town Hall Wednesday night — closed by a jackknifed semi — as the council voted to impose its own $2,650 fine on drivers who violate the state’s traction laws and block traffic.

“It’s been a long time coming for this ordinance to come through and I think it’s an important one for the council to regain some control over what we can,” Chris Botkins, the operations commander with the Vail Police Department, told the council Wednesday. 

Council members after the vote asked how quickly the emergency ordinance would go into effect. The new law also imposes a $1,500 fine for vehicles without chains when the state chain law is in effect and the $2,650 fine for drivers of un-chained commercial vehicles that spin out and block the highway. 

“Tonight?” one councilman asked. “We need to get home.”

The next morning, mere hours after the vote, another semitrailer jackknifed on icy roads and closed eastbound I-70 in the town. 

“Clearly there’s not a deterrent significant enough for truckers to change their behavior,” Vail Mayor Travis Coggins said in an interview before the vote. “Our estimate is that 60% of truckers are not chained when there is clearly a chain law. People are going to complain about this but my response is, ‘If you don’t like the fine, don’t break the law.’”

It’s been an exceptionally ugly winter in the I-70 mountain corridor. Storms have pummeled the roadway, leading to spun out vehicles that have closed the highway more than 200 times between Glenwood Springs and Georgetown. That’s a 40% increase over the 2023-24 winter, according to information provided by the Colorado Department of Transportation. Local and state lawmakers are weighing new regulations to help reduce the number of closures on the critical artery as trucking advocates argue the problem is not just unchained semis.

Coggins in January suggested that the fine for unchained vehicles be $20,000. The $2,650 fine for blocking a roadway in the town is the maximum allowed under state law. Legislation in 2019 required all commercial drivers to carry chains in the winter in Colorado and increased the fines for commercial vehicles without traction that block a roadway to $1,157. 

The fine is a message that “the status quo is not working,” Coggins said.

“It’s not working for Vail. It’s not working for Summit County and it’s not working for the entire I-70 corridor from Golden to Glenwood,” he said. “We are not being unreasonable. This needs to be addressed now. This needs to be a collaborative effort.”

Other communities are on board with the local traction law fine as state lawmakers consider increasing fines and permitting roadside chain-up services. 

“How many signs do you have to drive by telling truckers they need to chain up and yet invariably there are multiple times every winter when someone tries to save 20 minutes by not chaining up and they end up closing the highway,” Idaho Springs Mayor Chuck Harmon said. “We have got to bring an end to folks ignoring the current law. It’s just too impactful. And it’s so preventable.”

The Vail Town Council last month wrote a letter to Gov. Jared Polis expressing “our deep concerns” about commercial drivers not complying with traction laws, citing safety hazards for emergency personnel and drivers stuck in their cars as well as “detrimental efforts on the quality of life of Colorado residents, guests and workforce.” 

The letter noted that 99 full closures on I-70 in 2024 totaled 161 hours for an estimated economic impact of $300 million. (When CDOT updated operations at the Eisenhower-Johnson Memorial Tunnel in 2023, the agency’s director, Shoshana Lew said the economies of communities along the I-70 mountain corridor lost about $2 million for every hour that the interstate was closed.)

“The penalty for a closure needs to be more commensurate with the financial impact it causes,” reads the letter, which asked for better enforcement of a 2024 law that requires trucks to stay in the right lane on Vail Pass and through Dowd Junction, similar to regulations that keep trucks in the right lane in Glenwood Canyon. Police regularly report that closures often stem from trucks passing slower trucks and losing traction. 

Colorado State Patrol troopers so far this winter have written 425 citations for vehicles violating traction laws or blocking a roadway. Of those, 90 involved road closures, 338 commercial vehicles were cited and 397 were on I-70 between Floyd Hill and Dotsero.

• In the 2023-24 winter, CSP troopers wrote 453 traction law or road-blocking citations, 97 involving road closures, 389 commercial vehicles were cited and 379 were on I-70 between Floyd Hill and Dotsero.
• In the 2022-23 winter, CSP troopers wrote 380 traction law or road-blocking citations, 79 involving road closures, 353 commercial vehicles were cited and 290 were on I-70 between Floyd Hill and Dotsero.
• In the 2021-22 winter, CSP troopers wrote 243 traction law or road-blocking citations, 61 involving road closures, 228 commercial vehicles were cited and 189 were on I-70 between Floyd Hill and Dotsero.
• In the 2020-21 winter, CSP troopers wrote 333 traction law or road-blocking citations, 54 involving road closures, 316 commercial vehicles were cited and 305 were on I-70 between Floyd Hill and Dotsero.
• In the 2019-20 winter, CSP troopers wrote 453 traction law or road-blocking citations, 93 involving road closures, 422 commercial vehicles were cited and 394 were on I-70 between Floyd Hill and Dotsero.

In terms of crashes, Colorado State Patrol tracks about 900 to 1,000 crashes a year along the I-70 mountain corridor and about 15% of those crashes involve a commercial vehicle. 

Law proposed to help make chaining up more efficient

Bipartisan legislation proposed by Western Slope lawmakers this session would allow CDOT to issue permits to roadside businesses that install and remove chains. Senate Bill 69 also would require car rental companies to inform renters about chain laws and penalties and requires drivers of all types of passenger vehicles — even all-wheel drives — to have proper tires for snow. The legislation mirrors a 2006 law in Washington that licenses five small businesses that provide roadside services. 

The Colorado Motor Carriers Association “is ready to be part of the solution but it needs to be a broader focus than on just truck drivers and fines,” said association president Greg Fulton, who regularly meets with local communities along I-70 and supported the 2019 legislation that increased fines for chain law violations. 

 Fulton said there needs to be more chain-up and chain-removal areas along the mountain corridor. He suggests compliance checkpoints along the interstate — well before the snow and steeps like Vail Pass, the climbs to the Eisenhower-Johnson Memorial Tunnel and Floyd Hill — would reduce incidents. He wants to see parking areas for truckers so they can opt not to drive the mountain passes during snowstorms.

How about CDOT and Colorado State Patrol closing the highway through the mountains for all travel for an hour or two during snowstorms to limit the chance of an incident that requires emergency response, Fulton said. The association supports the roadside permitting legislation that would offer chain-up assistance. 

“We have the highest fines in the country today for chain laws. The only strategy in Colorado seems to be raising fines,” said Fulton, noting that drivers pay fines, not trucking companies. “What is getting forgotten in all this is the truck driver. We need to have safe places for them to chain up and remove chains.”

Along I-70 between Vail and Golden, drivers sometimes install and remove chains three times when the chain law is in effect, Fulton said.  

“These are people who are making $70,000 a year and we want to impose a $2,000 fine on them because they could not find a place to pull over and safely install chains in a snowstorm?” Fulton said. “These are people who are delivering products and food to mountain communities. Let’s have some compassion and understanding for truck drivers out there.”

(The Colorado Motor Carriers Association, which represents 650 trucking companies in the state including high-volume giants like UPS, FedEx and DHL, has sued Vail over the town’s 2022 restriction of delivery trucks in the cobbled-stoned village core. The association argues in its Colorado U.S. District Court lawsuit that the prohibition of trucks on the heated pedestrian streets of Vail Village violates federal laws that prevent states or municipalities from regulating some types of truck traffic.) 

Fines plus space to chain up and support for state patrol

Sen. Dylan Roberts drives from his home in Frisco to Denver daily when the legislature is in session. 

He’s a primary sponsor of the bipartisan Tire Chain Traction Control Device Permit legislation and last year he sponsored legislation that was signed into law that restricted trucks to the right lane on stretches of I-70 and increased regulation of commercial vehicles on the highway.

“Two weeks ago was the worst one,” Roberts said of his commute. “I sat in Georgetown for three hours heading west after semis spun out and closed the highway. Another time, I was heading up the west side of the tunnel and two semis were completely spinning out on a bright, sunny morning. If they had chains on, they wouldn’t have closed the highway.”

Roberts said he’s ready to work with Polis on legislation that would follow Vail’s lead and increase fines for vehicles that fail to follow the chain law. (Polis last week told reporters he was “very open to increasing the penalties” for vehicles without chains or proper tires on mountain roads.)

“We are definitely now having those conversations,” said Roberts, who could amend his Senate Bill 69 to add increased fines or work on new legislation next fall. 

Fines are “an important part” of the solution, Roberts said, but, like the truck drivers, he says there needs to be more spaces for truckers to chain up and better education of all drivers on the need for snow-gripping tires.

The Colorado Patrol’s Troop 4C, which patrols I-70 west of the tunnel and through Eagle County, ideally would have 38 troopers on the road, but there are only 25. The cost of housing on the Western Slope is a staffing challenge and it’s a demanding stretch of roadway for troopers, “defined by harsh working conditions, high volume and reactive work,” said Trooper Sherri Mendez with the state patrol’s public affairs office.

Roberts said support for Colorado State Patrol also is critical to solving the I-70 problem. 

“We can keep passing laws down at the state Capitol but we need the enforcement to happen and that requires more cooperation with local law enforcement and Colorado State Patrol, which is a challenge because of housing costs in mountain communities and the difficulty in our region to attract law enforcement personnel,” Roberts said. “This is a fine balance and we need to attack this from multiple angles.”