The town of Vail is going rogue with its own crackdown on Vail Pass traction-law violators.
An emergency ordinance, now being drafted, would give Vail Police Department money and manpower to monitor I-70 chain stations through town limits.
It would also impose steeper fines on commercial vehicles that get stuck on I-70 in a storm, and then charge an additional fee to tow them away.
“The penalty will be the maximum allowable per the jurisdiction of the municipal court,” Coggin said at this week’s council meeting, as reported by the Vail Daily. “We’ll also be directing trucks off of I-70 and turning them around so they’re going back westbound.”
Coggin says he was “underwhelmed” by the state response to his pleas for steeper fines on the I-70 mountain corridor. He sent a letter to lawmakers in February, when a rash of snowstorms and closures stalled traffic for hours, clogging up Vail frontage roads.
We asked Summit County commissioner Tamara Pogue if she supports bigger fines for traction-law violators, citing Vail’s frustrated request.
She said, not yet.
“I’m certainly grateful we have fines at all,” Pogue told Krystal 93 news director Phil Lindeman. “We didn’t a couple of years ago and now we have the ability to levy at least some fines.”
A passenger vehicle traction law, passed in 2019, was sponsored by our local state Senator Dylan Roberts. Roberts has sponsored multiple other traction and chain laws.
“I think the motor carrier’s association has tried really hard to educate on what it’s like to drive in the mountains, and that education is new in the past year or so,” Pogue said. “I would like to give it a minute to see if it can be helpful. I always believe incentives and education are where you want to start.”
Since our interview with Pogue, jackknifed semis on Fat Tuesday led to a 10-hour closure on I-70 above Silverthorne. Some travelers were stranded more than 12 hours.
“That said,” Pogue continued, “If it doesn’t help, we have to have a very real conversation about increasing those fines.”