{"id":802606,"date":"2019-12-26T17:47:55","date_gmt":"2019-12-27T00:47:55","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.summitdaily.com\/?p=376529"},"modified":"2019-12-26T17:47:55","modified_gmt":"2019-12-27T00:47:55","slug":"mountain-wheels-colorados-aggressive-driving-epidemic-has-state-patrol-on-alert","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/ksmt\/local-news\/mountain-wheels-colorados-aggressive-driving-epidemic-has-state-patrol-on-alert\/","title":{"rendered":"Mountain wheels: Colorado\u2019s aggressive driving epidemic has State Patrol on alert"},"content":{"rendered":"
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Reckless driving has lead to plenty of jams and more than enough heartache along the interstate.<\/strong>
File Photo<\/em><\/figcaption><\/div>\n<\/figure>\n<\/div>\n

I was making my way down Georgetown hill last Sunday on dry roads when I noticed the guy behind me was literally going 89 mph in a fully-loaded Toyota 4Runner, which has never been considered a high-performance vehicle.<\/p>\n

The rest of my drive, motorists\u2019 average speeds seemed to crest 85-plus, with plenty more folks going faster than that. In Golden\/Lakewood, a few days later, several guys passed me in big pickup trucks doing easily 95 mph, ironically right at the spot of last April\u2019s massive out-of-control tractor-trailer crash, which killed four people.<\/p>\n

It\u2019s gotten to a point where I often feel like I\u2019m experiencing some weird real-life mashup of \u201cThe Purge\u201d and \u201cGrand Theft Auto.\u201d Maybe you\u2019ve been experiencing it, as well.<\/p>\n

Just to make sure I\u2019m not crazy, however, as I drove approximately 20,000 miles this year in more than 80 different new cars and trucks, I thought I\u2019d call the State Patrol and see if they\u2019re also seeing some sort of ruination of social order out on Colorado\u2019s highways.<\/p>\n

Trooper Josh Lewis, a 13-year veteran of the Colorado State Patrol, confirmed that high speeds, road rage and generally careless driving does indeed seem to be the new normal, not just on the blessed Interstate 70 but on highways across the state. Lewis says he\u2019s not able to point to a single cause, but he says many drivers \u2014 like the 4Runner pilot seriously exceeding the physical limits of his heavy, slow-to-react SUV \u2014 seem to have developed a mistaken sense of invincibility.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe totally understand \u2014 the big concern seems to be so many people who believe that (a crash) is never going to happen to me \u2014 \u2018I\u2019m ok, I\u2019m the exception,\u2019\u201d Lewis says. \u201cBelieve me, physics is going to act the same for everyone. We see that every day.\u201d<\/p>\n

Those breakneck speeds, the left-lane hogging and the ill-mannered driving of both skier traffic and regular commuters has the patrol concerned, especially with more than 570 fatal car accidents in Colorado so far this year.<\/p>\n

Unfortunately, with limited personnel resources and budgets, the state patrol can\u2019t be there all the time, and drivers seem to be taking that tangible shortage of speed enforcement as a go-ahead for no-responsibility driving, more and more of the time.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe deal with DUIs, speed and people simply not wearing their seatbelts \u2014 which is still a huge issue \u2014 which all seem to come back to that same mindset, that \u2018it\u2019s not going to happen to me,\u2019\u201d he says. \u201cPeople don\u2019t understand that in an accident, it\u2019s not just you involved, it\u2019s the first responders and the families of the victims. If you look at it on a community level, a single crash can affect dozens of people.\u201d<\/p>\n

And statistics, plus physics, plus challenging winter driving conditions, suggest that accidents are far more likely than many Colorado drivers believe, Lewis adds.<\/p>\n

\u201cUltimately, it comes down to personal accountability and responsibility, and to be aware of the conditions, speed and weather, as it can all change in an instant,\u201d he says.<\/p>\n

Still, he says that he and other troopers experience unbelievable acts of vehicular mayhem on a daily basis, a sense of carelessness that has resulted in the deaths of five patrol staff in on-duty accidents since 2015, including two this year.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe see it in our own vehicles \u2014 people will come flying past us at high speeds, and we have to ask, \u2018really? Around a marked car?\u2019 We have to spend time chasing them down, and then usually they get very defensive when we ask them why they were going so fast,\u201d he says.<\/p>\n

And despite what some drivers might think, your Colorado specialty plates aren\u2019t going to get you out of a ticket, or give you a pass. Thank you for your service, veterans and firefighters, or folks sporting Share the Road, Support the Troops or Pioneer plates, but it doesn\u2019t give you the right to cut off out-of-state drivers or even your fellow green-plated Coloradans.<\/p>\n

\u201cYou\u2019ll inevitably find a small percentage of people with those plates who feel that they\u2019re special or exempt from the rules. It\u2019s worse when we deal with folks who have firefighter or EMS plates, in those sort of incidents. They definitely should know better, which kind of makes us shake our heads.\u201d<\/p>\n

Lewis says some help can be found when the patrol receives citizen reports of dangerous driving, either while it\u2019s happening, or after the fact. Dialing *CSP (*277) on a mobile phone or calling (303) 239-4501 is always an option, and if it can\u2019t lead to a direct response from the local district, the calls at least help establish incident statistics that can help the troopers prioritize enforcement campaigns.<\/p>\n

\u201cBut if you see a full-on emergency, be it a driver who\u2019s fallen asleep or is weaving, or a bunch of kids bouncing around without seat belts in the back of an SUV, call 911,\u201d he says. \u201cPlease call us, and don\u2019t put yourself in danger, either. Don\u2019t road-rage back, or chase someone down yourself.\u201d<\/p>\n

Andy Stonehouse\u2019s column \u201cMountain Wheels\u201d publishes Saturdays in the Summit Daily News. Stonehouse has worked as an editor and writer in Colorado since 1998, focusing on automotive coverage since 2004. He lives in Greeley. Contact him at rossandrewstonehouse@gmail.com<\/a><\/em>.<\/p>\n

via:: Summit Daily<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Reckless driving has lead to plenty of jams and more than enough heartache along the interstate.File Photo I was making my way down Georgetown hill last Sunday on dry roads when I noticed the guy behind me was literally going 89 mph in a fully-loaded Toyota 4Runner, which has never been considered a high-performance vehicle. […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[99],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-802606","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","6":"category-local-news"},"acf":[],"publishpress_future_action":{"enabled":false,"date":"2026-07-29 19:45:47","action":"change-status","newStatus":"draft","terms":[],"taxonomy":"category","extraData":[]},"publishpress_future_workflow_manual_trigger":{"enabledWorkflows":[]},"distributor_meta":false,"distributor_terms":false,"distributor_media":false,"distributor_original_site_name":"KSMT The Mountain","distributor_original_site_url":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/ksmt","push-errors":false,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/ksmt\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/802606","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/ksmt\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/ksmt\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/ksmt\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/ksmt\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=802606"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/ksmt\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/802606\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/ksmt\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=802606"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/ksmt\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=802606"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/ksmt\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=802606"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}