Statehouse leaders are trying to revive a bill that would stick truckers with steeper fines and scarred driving records if they don’t chain up and cause traffic backups along Interstate 70.
Senate President Joan Fitz-Gerald, D-Jefferson County, and House Speaker Andrew Romanoff, D-Denver, stepped in Wednesday, a day after the House Transportation Committee voted against – but stopped short of killing – House Bill 1229.
They planned to gather truck drivers, ski-industry leaders and elected officials from Colorado’s mountain corridor for a meeting today in the hope of finding a compromise.
“There is still a possibility for resurrection,” said Fitz-Gerald, whose district includes high-country towns fed up with spun-out big rigs that cause highway shutdowns.
She suggested that the state could use money from increased fines to improve chain-up stations along the interstate and increase “courtesy patrols,” which help truckers put on and remove chains. Also, weigh stations could check trucks for chains and fine drivers who are not carrying them, Fitz-Gerald said.
The legislation sponsored by Fitz- Gerald and Rep. Dan Gibbs, D- Silverthorne, would increase the fine from $100 to $500 for truckers who disobey chain requirements. It also would add four points to the driving records of truckers who disobey the state’s chain law and block traffic.
“This is an economic problem, and it’s a public-safety problem, and therefore, it’s our problem,” Romanoff said.
Truckers swayed committee members by questioning the fairness of punishing them when the state’s chain-up spots are inadequate.
Instead, the state should ensure truckers have safer places to pull off the icy, snowpacked interstate for the 45 minutes it typically takes to chain up, said Greg Fulton, president of the Colorado Motor Carriers Association.
The Denver Metro Chamber of Commerce and the Colorado Municipal League threw their support behind the bill Wednesday, joining dozens of mayors, town council members and county commissioners along I-70.
Frisco Mayor Bernie Zurbriggen spent 15 minutes “dead still” on the west side of the Eisenhower Tunnel on his way to a Capitol hearing on the chain-up bill last week. The problem: a trucker parked in the right lane putting on chains.
Zurbriggen said the truck should have stopped to chain up earlier.
“There really was no excuse,” he said. “There are great big signs along the highway. They say ‘chain law in effect.”‘
Mountain communities see the bill as one step in solving I-70 jams and a way to reach the trucking companies who aren’t bothering to chain up.
“What we are really trying to get people to do is obey the law that’s on the books, but the fine is only 100 bucks,” Zurbriggen said. “For these guys, that’s just the cost of doing business.”
Staff writer Jennifer Brown can be reached at 303-954-1593 or jenbrown@denverpost.com.
